For several months, things had been spiraling downwards at Savage Beast, the music-recommendation company started three years before by Tim Westergren. The company's founder-CEO recently left due to pressures both at home and within the venture. Dozens of investors turned thumbs-down on the venture; salaries had been cut; and, tensions had risen within the founding team. Now Westergren, the founder who has taken over as CEO, is facing even deeper pressures as he finds out about a lawsuit filed by former employees, and he is wondering if it is time to give up on ever achieving his vision.
Swot Analysis of "Savage Beast (A)" written by Noam Wasserman, LP Maurice includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Beast Westergren facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Savage Beast (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Financial management, IT, Leadership, Leading teams and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Savage Beast (A) casestudy better are - – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Savage Beast (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Beast Westergren, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Beast Westergren 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 Savage Beast (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Savage Beast (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Beast Westergren
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 Beast Westergren
Strengths Savage Beast (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Beast Westergren in Savage Beast (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– Beast Westergren 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 Noam Wasserman, LP Maurice 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Beast Westergren 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Beast Westergren in the sector have low bargaining power. Savage Beast (A) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Beast Westergren to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Beast Westergren has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Beast Westergren 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Beast Westergren 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 Savage Beast (A) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– Beast Westergren is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Savage Beast (A) 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.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Beast Westergren 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 Beast Westergren in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Beast Westergren in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Beast Westergren 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 Savage Beast (A) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Beast Westergren is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Savage Beast (A) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Learning organization
- Beast Westergren 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 Beast Westergren is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Savage Beast (A) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Beast Westergren
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Beast Westergren does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses Savage Beast (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Savage Beast (A) are -
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Noam Wasserman, LP Maurice suggests that, Beast Westergren 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Savage Beast (A), 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, Beast Westergren 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Beast Westergren 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Savage Beast (A) HBR case study mentions - Beast Westergren 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Beast Westergren, firm in the HBR case study Savage Beast (A) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Beast Westergren 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. Beast Westergren 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Beast Westergren 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Beast Westergren 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Beast Westergren is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Beast Westergren needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Beast Westergren to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Savage Beast (A), is just above the industry average. Beast Westergren 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 Savage Beast (A) | 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 Savage Beast (A) are -
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. Beast Westergren 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. Beast Westergren 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Beast Westergren 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Beast Westergren 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Beast Westergren can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Beast Westergren can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Beast Westergren operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Beast Westergren 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 Beast Westergren to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Beast Westergren 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, Savage Beast (A), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– Beast Westergren can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Savage Beast (A) 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Beast Westergren 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Beast Westergren has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Beast Westergren to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Savage Beast (A) case study. Beast Westergren can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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 Beast Westergren 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Beast Westergren 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Beast Westergren can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Savage Beast (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Savage Beast (A) are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Beast Westergren 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.
Environmental challenges
– Beast Westergren 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. Beast Westergren can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Beast Westergren is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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. Beast Westergren needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Beast Westergren
– 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 Beast Westergren.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Savage Beast (A), Beast Westergren 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 .
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 Beast Westergren.
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. Beast Westergren 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.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Beast Westergren 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 Savage Beast (A) .
Regulatory challenges
– Beast Westergren 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Beast Westergren with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Beast Westergren 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Savage Beast (A) 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 Savage Beast (A) 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 Savage Beast (A) 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 Savage Beast (A) 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 Savage Beast (A) 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 Beast Westergren needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.