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Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution

Case Study Description of Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product


Doug Mason wished to create a new product that would cater to the interests of a new age generation, and he chose the development of a beverage that would have a healthy lifestyle image. His entrepreneurial start-up led to very rapid expansion and ultimately to sales in other countries. Clearly Canadian relies upon other companies to provide equipment for transportation and distribution, enabling it to operate with relatively few employees and a small base of physical capital. The case poses an interesting question, "Is the company a small service sector enterprise or a large manufacturing business?"

Authors :: David W. Conklin

Topics :: Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Tags :: Entrepreneurship, Globalization, Strategic planning, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis

Swot Analysis of "Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product" written by David W. Conklin includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Beverage Age facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Globalization, Strategic planning and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.


Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Beverage Age, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Beverage Age 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 Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Beverage Age
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 Beverage Age




Strengths Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Beverage Age in Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product Harvard Business Review case study are -

Highly skilled collaborators

– Beverage Age 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 Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Beverage Age in the sector have low bargaining power. Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Beverage Age to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Learning organization

- Beverage Age 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 Beverage Age is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Beverage Age 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 Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Strong track record of project management

– Beverage Age is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Beverage Age has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Beverage Age has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Beverage Age in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Beverage Age 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Beverage Age 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.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy in the Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Beverage Age is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.

Organizational Resilience of Beverage Age

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Beverage Age does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.






Weaknesses Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product are -

High dependence on star products

– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Beverage Age has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product HBR case study mentions - Beverage Age takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Beverage Age is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Beverage Age needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Beverage Age to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Beverage Age needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Beverage Age has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.

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 Beverage Age supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Beverage Age vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Skills based hiring

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Beverage Age 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product, is just above the industry average. Beverage Age 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.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Beverage Age 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. Beverage Age 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– It come across in the case study Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product 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 Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Beverage Age is planning to shift buying processes online.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Beverage Age is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.




Opportunities Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product | 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 Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product are -

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Beverage Age can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

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. Beverage Age 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. Beverage Age 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Beverage Age to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Beverage Age to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Beverage Age 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, Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Loyalty marketing

– Beverage Age 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Beverage Age in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Beverage Age 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Beverage Age is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Beverage Age in the consumer business. Now Beverage Age can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Beverage Age has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Beverage Age to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Beverage Age to increase its market reach. Beverage Age 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.

Developing new processes and practices

– Beverage Age 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.

Reconfiguring business model

– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Beverage Age to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.




Threats Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product are -

Capital market disruption

– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Beverage Age.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Beverage Age is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

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. Beverage Age needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Beverage Age 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 Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product .

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. Beverage Age can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Instability in the European markets

– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Beverage Age will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.

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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Beverage Age 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.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Beverage Age with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.

Regulatory challenges

– Beverage Age needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry regulations.

Increasing wage structure of Beverage Age

– 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 Beverage Age.

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 Beverage Age business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Environmental challenges

– Beverage Age 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. Beverage Age can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product 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 Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product 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 Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product 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 Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product 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 Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp.: Creating a New New Age Product 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 Beverage Age needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.



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