This case follows Sara Norton, a soccer player-turned-serial entrepreneur, as she transforms Seaside Organics from a fledgling startup into an $89 million company. Informed by the successes and failures of her first organics venture, WellBar, Norton tries to balance her naturally energetic, hands-on approach with the changing needs of a large company. Students discuss the differences between running a growing startup versus a mature organization, and the tensions that can result between entrepreneurs and the managers tasked with running their organizations.
Swot Analysis of "Seaside Organics" written by Howard H. Stevenson, Alisa Zalosh includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Organics Seaside facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Seaside Organics case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Conflict, Decision making, Entrepreneurship, Growth strategy, Leadership, Manufacturing, Organizational structure, Professional transitions and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Seaside Organics casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Seaside Organics case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Organics Seaside, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Organics Seaside 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 Seaside Organics can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Seaside Organics case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Organics Seaside
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 Organics Seaside
Strengths Seaside Organics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Organics Seaside in Seaside Organics Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Organics Seaside in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Organics Seaside 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 Seaside Organics - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– Seaside Organics firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Organics Seaside to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Organics Seaside to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Organics Seaside 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 Organics Seaside in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Organics Seaside is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Seaside Organics 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Organics Seaside 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Organics Seaside is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Organics Seaside 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Seaside Organics 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Organics Seaside is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Seaside Organics are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Organics Seaside 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 Seaside Organics HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Organics Seaside 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 Organics Seaside is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Seaside Organics Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses Seaside Organics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Seaside Organics are -
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Howard H. Stevenson, Alisa Zalosh suggests that, Organics Seaside 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Organics Seaside 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. Organics Seaside 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Organics Seaside products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Organics Seaside needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Seaside Organics, in the dynamic environment Organics Seaside has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Organics Seaside 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 Organics Seaside is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Organics Seaside needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Organics Seaside to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Organics Seaside 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Seaside Organics 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 Seaside Organics can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Organics Seaside is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Seaside Organics, 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Organics Seaside 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Seaside Organics 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 Organics Seaside 's lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Seaside Organics, is just above the industry average. Organics Seaside 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.
Opportunities Seaside Organics | 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 Seaside Organics are -
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 Organics Seaside 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Organics Seaside 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Organics Seaside can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Seaside Organics 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.
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. Organics Seaside can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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. Organics Seaside 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. Organics Seaside 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Organics Seaside 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Organics Seaside 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Organics Seaside 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, Seaside Organics, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Organics Seaside has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Organics Seaside to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Seaside Organics case study. Organics Seaside can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Organics Seaside 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Organics Seaside 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
– Organics Seaside 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 Seaside Organics - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Organics Seaside 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, Organics Seaside can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Organics Seaside operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Threats Seaside Organics External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Seaside Organics are -
Increasing wage structure of Organics Seaside
– 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 Organics Seaside.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Organics Seaside 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Seaside Organics, Organics Seaside 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 .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Organics Seaside 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.
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. Organics Seaside can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
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 Organics Seaside in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Organics Seaside 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 Organics Seaside.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Organics Seaside 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 Seaside Organics .
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 Organics Seaside business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Organics Seaside needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Organics Seaside 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Seaside Organics 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 Seaside Organics 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 Seaside Organics 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 Seaside Organics 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 Seaside Organics 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 Organics Seaside needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.