EasyEverything: The Internet Shop SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of EasyEverything: The Internet Shop
By February 2000, easyEverything, the first chain of large Internet cafes to be conceived anywhere in the world, had already successfully launched five shops in London. The company also aggressively planned to launch an additional 50 shops across Europe by 2002. EasyEverything was just one of several companies operating under the U.K.-based parent company easyGroup, which also managed easyJet airlines and several other start-up ventures. Stelios Haji-Ioannou, chairman and owner of easyGroup, was a charismatic and wealthy entrepreneur known for his down-to-earth, no-frills style that had come to exemplify the easy brand. His mission for easyEverything was simple: to make easyEverything the cheapest way to access the Internet. He also envisioned easyEverything as a virtual alternative to department stores, where users could shop, send e-mails, and surf the Internet. However, some industry experts questioned whether Internet cafes were a viable long-term concept because of rapid changes in technology, such as wireless Internet access.
Swot Analysis of "EasyEverything: The Internet Shop" written by Nirmalya Kumar, Brian Rogers includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Easyeverything Internet facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in EasyEverything: The Internet Shop case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Internet, Supply chain and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the EasyEverything: The Internet Shop casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of EasyEverything: The Internet Shop
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in EasyEverything: The Internet Shop case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Easyeverything Internet, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Easyeverything Internet 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 EasyEverything: The Internet Shop can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in EasyEverything: The Internet Shop case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Easyeverything Internet
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 Easyeverything Internet
Strengths EasyEverything: The Internet Shop | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Easyeverything Internet in EasyEverything: The Internet Shop Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Easyeverything Internet has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Easyeverything Internet 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Easyeverything Internet is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Easyeverything Internet
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Easyeverything Internet does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Easyeverything Internet 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 EasyEverything: The Internet Shop HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Easyeverything Internet 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 Nirmalya Kumar, Brian Rogers 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– EasyEverything: The Internet Shop firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Easyeverything Internet to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Easyeverything Internet to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the EasyEverything: The Internet Shop 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Easyeverything Internet 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 EasyEverything: The Internet Shop - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Easyeverything Internet is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in EasyEverything: The Internet Shop Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Easyeverything Internet in the sector have low bargaining power. EasyEverything: The Internet Shop has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Easyeverything Internet to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Easyeverything Internet is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in EasyEverything: The Internet Shop 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.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Easyeverything Internet digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Easyeverything Internet 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.
Weaknesses EasyEverything: The Internet Shop | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of EasyEverything: The Internet Shop are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Easyeverything Internet is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study EasyEverything: The Internet Shop can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Easyeverything Internet 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study EasyEverything: The Internet Shop has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Easyeverything Internet 's lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study EasyEverything: The Internet Shop, 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 star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the EasyEverything: The Internet Shop 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 Easyeverything Internet has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Easyeverything Internet 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Easyeverything Internet 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. Easyeverything Internet 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study EasyEverything: The Internet Shop, in the dynamic environment Easyeverything Internet has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Easyeverything Internet has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Easyeverything Internet 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study EasyEverything: The Internet Shop, is just above the industry average. Easyeverything Internet 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 to strategic competitive environment developments
– As EasyEverything: The Internet Shop HBR case study mentions - Easyeverything Internet 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.
Opportunities EasyEverything: The Internet Shop | 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 EasyEverything: The Internet Shop are -
Buying journey improvements
– Easyeverything Internet can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. EasyEverything: The Internet Shop 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.
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. Easyeverything Internet 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. Easyeverything Internet 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Easyeverything Internet 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Easyeverything Internet can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Easyeverything Internet can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Easyeverything Internet 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 EasyEverything: The Internet Shop - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Easyeverything Internet to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Easyeverything Internet 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.
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. Easyeverything Internet can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Easyeverything Internet is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. EasyEverything: The Internet Shop 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 Easyeverything Internet in the consumer business. Now Easyeverything Internet can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Easyeverything Internet can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Easyeverything Internet operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Easyeverything Internet 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Easyeverything Internet 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 Easyeverything Internet to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats EasyEverything: The Internet Shop External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study EasyEverything: The Internet Shop are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Easyeverything Internet is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Easyeverything Internet has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Easyeverything Internet needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Easyeverything Internet with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Easyeverything Internet 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.
Increasing wage structure of Easyeverything Internet
– 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 Easyeverything Internet.
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. Easyeverything Internet can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Easyeverything Internet 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.
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. Easyeverything Internet 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.
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. Easyeverything Internet 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Easyeverything Internet 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Easyeverything Internet 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 Easyeverything Internet in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of EasyEverything: The Internet Shop 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 EasyEverything: The Internet Shop 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 EasyEverything: The Internet Shop 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 EasyEverything: The Internet Shop 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 EasyEverything: The Internet Shop 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 Easyeverything Internet needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
