Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk
This is a Darden case study.Although breast milk is recognized by doctors, public health officials, and scientists as the best first food for an infant, it is not pure. Many synthetic chemicals released into the environment, intentionally or not, can be found in breast milk. Chemicals such as famous "bad actors" like dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, commonly known as DDT, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), as well as less well-known substances such as flame retardants (polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs), have been detected in human breast milk around the world. Many of those synthetic chemicals are known or suspected causes of cancer, and they have been linked to other health problems such as diabetes, reproductive disorders, and impaired brain development. The health benefits of breastfeeding far outweigh the possible negative effects of chemical contaminants in breast milk, but the presence of those chemicals remains a cause for concern among health officials, individuals, and the companies whose products or manufacturing process release toxins into our environment.
Swot Analysis of "Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk" written by Andrea Larson includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Breast Milk facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Ethics, Health, Innovation, Manufacturing and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk casestudy better are - – increasing energy prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Breast Milk, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Breast Milk 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 Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Breast Milk
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 Breast Milk
Strengths Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Breast Milk in Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Breast Milk 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 Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Breast Milk 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Breast Milk 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.
Learning organization
- Breast Milk 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 Breast Milk is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Breast Milk 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 Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Breast Milk 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 Breast Milk 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
– Breast Milk is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Breast Milk 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 Andrea Larson 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.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Breast Milk digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Breast Milk 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.
Organizational Resilience of Breast Milk
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Breast Milk does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Breast Milk to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Breast Milk to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk are -
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk 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 Breast Milk has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk HBR case study mentions - Breast Milk 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 Breast Milk is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Breast Milk needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Breast Milk to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk 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 Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Breast Milk is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Breast Milk products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Breast Milk needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Breast Milk 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Breast Milk 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk, in the dynamic environment Breast Milk has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Breast Milk has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Andrea Larson suggests that, Breast Milk is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk, is just above the industry average. Breast Milk 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Breast Milk has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Opportunities Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk | 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 Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Breast Milk 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Breast Milk 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Breast Milk 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 Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Breast Milk to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Breast Milk 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Breast Milk 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Breast Milk can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Breast Milk operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
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. Breast Milk can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Breast Milk 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. Breast Milk 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Breast Milk is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Breast Milk 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.
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. Breast Milk can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Breast Milk 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, Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Breast Milk to increase its market reach. Breast Milk 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.
Threats Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Breast Milk 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Breast Milk 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.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Breast Milk 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.
Environmental challenges
– Breast Milk 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. Breast Milk can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
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. Breast Milk needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Breast Milk 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.
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. Breast Milk can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Breast Milk.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Breast Milk 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 Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk .
Increasing wage structure of Breast Milk
– 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 Breast Milk.
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 Breast Milk in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk 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 Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk 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 Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk 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 Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk 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 Environmental Health: Chemicals in Breast Milk 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 Breast Milk needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.