Entrepreneurs Ellen Pack and Marleen McDaniel have founded a women's online network and watched it grow from an online subscription service in 1992 to one of the best known, widely visited women's networks on the web in 1999. While the company's vision has remained consistent, the company has taken on new forms as the Internet world in which it operates changes. The company reincarnates its business model and creates new strategic partnerships in an Internet space that is rapidly filling with other women's media organizations. McDaniel's challenges include "getting her stars aligned" before an IPO. Does she have the proper systems in place to ensure that an IPO will be successful?
Swot Analysis of "Women.com" written by Myra M. Hart, Sarah Thorp includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Women's Mcdaniel facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Women.com case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Gender, Internet and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Women.com casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing commodity prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Women.com case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Women's Mcdaniel, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Women's Mcdaniel 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 Women.com can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Women.com case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Women's Mcdaniel
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 Women's Mcdaniel
Strengths Women.com | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Women's Mcdaniel in Women.com Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Women's Mcdaniel 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.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Women's Mcdaniel 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 Women's Mcdaniel in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Women's Mcdaniel
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Women's Mcdaniel does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Women's Mcdaniel 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 Women.com - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Women's Mcdaniel in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Women's Mcdaniel in the sector have low bargaining power. Women.com has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Women's Mcdaniel to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Women's Mcdaniel has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Women's Mcdaniel 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.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Women's Mcdaniel digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Women's Mcdaniel 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Women's Mcdaniel is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Women.com Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
High brand equity
– Women's Mcdaniel has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Women's Mcdaniel to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– Women.com firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Women's Mcdaniel to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Women's Mcdaniel to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Women's Mcdaniel 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.
Weaknesses Women.com | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Women.com are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Women's Mcdaniel, firm in the HBR case study Women.com needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Women.com HBR case study mentions - Women's Mcdaniel 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Women's Mcdaniel 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Women's Mcdaniel 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Women's Mcdaniel 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Women's Mcdaniel 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Women's Mcdaniel 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Myra M. Hart, Sarah Thorp suggests that, Women's Mcdaniel 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Women's Mcdaniel 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.
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 Women's Mcdaniel supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Women.com, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Women's Mcdaniel vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Women's Mcdaniel is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Women's Mcdaniel needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Women's Mcdaniel to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities Women.com | 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 Women.com are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Women's Mcdaniel 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, Women.com, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Women's Mcdaniel in the consumer business. Now Women's Mcdaniel can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Women's Mcdaniel 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 Women's Mcdaniel to increase its market reach. Women's Mcdaniel 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Women's Mcdaniel has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Women's Mcdaniel to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Women.com case study. Women's Mcdaniel can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Women's Mcdaniel 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Women's Mcdaniel 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Women's Mcdaniel can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Women's Mcdaniel 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Women's Mcdaniel 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 Women.com - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Women's Mcdaniel to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Women's Mcdaniel 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 Women's Mcdaniel to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Women's Mcdaniel can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Manufacturing automation
– Women's Mcdaniel can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Threats Women.com External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Women.com are -
Regulatory challenges
– Women's Mcdaniel 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.
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 Women's Mcdaniel.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Women's Mcdaniel with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Women's Mcdaniel 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. Women's Mcdaniel can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Women's Mcdaniel 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Women's Mcdaniel 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Women's Mcdaniel 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 Women.com .
Consumer confidence and its impact on Women's Mcdaniel 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Women's Mcdaniel has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Women's Mcdaniel 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.
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 Women's Mcdaniel business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Women's Mcdaniel 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.
Increasing wage structure of Women's Mcdaniel
– 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 Women's Mcdaniel.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Women.com 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 Women.com 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 Women.com 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 Women.com 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 Women.com 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 Women's Mcdaniel needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
