Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities
The (B) case explained how Movile expanded their business, moving into the smartphone market from their core business of feature phones in Latin America. The case described the two parts of Movile's strategy. The first was Movile's development and launch of a smartphone app, PlayKids, which, as of the end of 2014, was the number-one children's app in the world (by sales in the Apple app store). The second aspect of this strategy involved investing in mobile-enabled offline start-ups in Brazil. The (A) case may be taught as a stand-alone case. The (B) case requires the (A) case to be read beforehand.
Authors :: George Foster, Peter Ziebelman, Jessica Morgan
Swot Analysis of "Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities" written by George Foster, Peter Ziebelman, Jessica Morgan includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Movile's Movile facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Growth strategy, Mobile, Operations management and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities casestudy better are - – technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Movile's Movile, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Movile's Movile 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 Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Movile's Movile
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 Movile's Movile
Strengths Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Movile's Movile in Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Movile's Movile 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Movile's Movile is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Strong track record of project management
– Movile's Movile is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Movile's Movile in the sector have low bargaining power. Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Movile's Movile to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Movile's Movile has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Movile's Movile digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Movile's Movile 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.
High brand equity
– Movile's Movile has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Movile's Movile 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
– Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Movile's Movile to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Movile's Movile to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Movile's Movile has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Movile's Movile 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Movile's Movile 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 Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Movile's Movile 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 George Foster, Peter Ziebelman, Jessica Morgan 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.
Learning organization
- Movile's Movile 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 Movile's Movile is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities are -
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities 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 Movile's Movile has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Movile's Movile 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities, in the dynamic environment Movile's Movile has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Movile's Movile has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Movile's Movile is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Movile's Movile needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Movile's Movile to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities 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 Movile's Movile 's lucrative customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities, it seems that the employees of Movile's Movile don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities 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 Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Movile's Movile is planning to shift buying processes online.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Movile's Movile 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Movile's Movile 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Movile's Movile is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Movile's Movile 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 Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities | 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 Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities are -
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 Movile's Movile in the consumer business. Now Movile's Movile can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Movile's Movile 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Movile's Movile 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 Movile's Movile 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Movile's Movile 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, Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Movile's Movile is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Movile's Movile 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Movile's Movile has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Movile's Movile to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities case study. Movile's Movile 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 Movile's Movile 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.
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 Movile's Movile 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Movile's Movile can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities 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. Movile's Movile 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. Movile's Movile 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Movile's Movile 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.
Threats Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Movile's Movile 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.
Environmental challenges
– Movile's Movile 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. Movile's Movile can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
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 Movile's Movile in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Movile's Movile needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Movile's Movile 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Movile's Movile is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Movile's Movile.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities, Movile's Movile may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Innovation & Entrepreneurship .
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Movile's Movile 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 Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities .
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. Movile's Movile can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Movile's Movile 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Movile's Movile 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities 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 Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities 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 Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities 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 Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities 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 Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities 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 Movile's Movile needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
