Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field
The founder of Sushilicious, a new restaurant in California, was thinking about how to make his second year in the business even more successful. His objective is to grow the current base for his restaurant with a limited marketing budget. The founder has had success building his first restaurant using a combination of social media tools and now wonders how he can build upon his current communication strategy.
Swot Analysis of "Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field" written by Dante Pirouz, Raymond Pirouz, Ken Mark includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Sushilicious Restaurant facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Internet, Marketing, Strategy and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sushilicious Restaurant, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sushilicious Restaurant operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sushilicious Restaurant
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field.
4. Making a Innovation & Entrepreneurship topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Sushilicious Restaurant
Strengths Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sushilicious Restaurant in Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– Sushilicious Restaurant is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Dante Pirouz, Raymond Pirouz, Ken Mark can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sushilicious Restaurant has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Sushilicious Restaurant digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Sushilicious Restaurant has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Learning organization
- Sushilicious Restaurant is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Sushilicious Restaurant is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Sushilicious Restaurant is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Sushilicious Restaurant has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Sushilicious Restaurant has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Training and development
– Sushilicious Restaurant has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Sushilicious Restaurant is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Sushilicious Restaurant in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management
– Sushilicious Restaurant is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sushilicious Restaurant are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Weaknesses Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field are -
Need for greater diversity
– Sushilicious Restaurant has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Innovation & Entrepreneurship strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Sushilicious Restaurant supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Sushilicious Restaurant vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field, is just above the industry average. Sushilicious Restaurant needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Sushilicious Restaurant is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Sushilicious Restaurant has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field, in the dynamic environment Sushilicious Restaurant has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sushilicious Restaurant has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Sushilicious Restaurant, firm in the HBR case study Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sushilicious Restaurant has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Sushilicious Restaurant has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Sushilicious Restaurant even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field, it seems that the employees of Sushilicious Restaurant don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Opportunities Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sushilicious Restaurant can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sushilicious Restaurant operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sushilicious Restaurant can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Sushilicious Restaurant can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Sushilicious Restaurant can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Sushilicious Restaurant can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Sushilicious Restaurant can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Developing new processes and practices
– Sushilicious Restaurant can develop new processes and procedures in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Sushilicious Restaurant can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sushilicious Restaurant to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Sushilicious Restaurant to increase its market reach. Sushilicious Restaurant will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Sushilicious Restaurant can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Sushilicious Restaurant has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sushilicious Restaurant can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Sushilicious Restaurant has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Sushilicious Restaurant to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field case study. Sushilicious Restaurant can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sushilicious Restaurant in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Sushilicious Restaurant needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Sushilicious Restaurant can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Sushilicious Restaurant needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Sushilicious Restaurant can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sushilicious Restaurant can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Sushilicious Restaurant in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Sushilicious Restaurant can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field .
Increasing wage structure of Sushilicious Restaurant
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Sushilicious Restaurant.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Sushilicious Restaurant business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sushilicious Restaurant demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Sushilicious Restaurant high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Sushilicious: Standing Out in a Crowded Field is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Sushilicious Restaurant needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
