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 - – increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, 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 -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Movile's Movile in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Movile's Movile 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.
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 -
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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities, 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities HBR case study mentions - Movile's Movile 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Movile's Movile products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Movile's Movile needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
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.
Need for greater diversity
– Movile's Movile 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.
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 -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Movile's Movile 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 Movile (B): Building New Venture Opportunities - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Movile's Movile to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Movile's Movile can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Movile's Movile operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Movile's Movile to increase its market reach. Movile's Movile 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Movile's Movile 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 Movile's Movile to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Movile's Movile can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Movile's Movile 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Movile's Movile 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.
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 -
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 .
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 Movile's Movile business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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.
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.
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 .
Increasing wage structure of Movile's Movile
– 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 Movile's Movile.
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 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Movile's Movile 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Movile's Movile has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Movile's Movile 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.