Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B)
This is a Darden case study.The organizers of a music festival may use video from the Friday concert to create a DVD to sell to those who come to the Saturday concert. Attendance on Saturday is uncertain, as is the percentage of those who attend on Saturday who will buy the DVD. Is this a good project? If so, what number of DVDs should be burned early Saturday morning and offered for sale at that evening's performance? By that time, Friday attendance is known, as well as whether it rained on Friday, and there is a forecast for whether it will rain on Saturday. Historical information on these variables may help us predict Saturday attendance using multiple regression; together with the results of a marketing survey, such analysis will help us make better purchasing decisions. This case series (see also the A case, UV0840) can be used to illuminate a multitude of concepts that are covered in basic decision-analysis courses. The series starts by examining the role of uncertainty in decision making, proceeds through the estimation of probability distributions from sample data with multiple regression, culminates in the development of a full decision model, and ends with a qualitative and quantitative analysis (with a tornado diagram) of how to add value and reduce risk. Key pitfalls for students are failing to recognize both limits on sales (supply and demand), incomplete reasoning in the determination of the attendance probability distribution, and oversimplifying the full forecast model (i.e., averaging the Saturday rain/no Saturday rain outcomes, rather than incorporating the uncertainty explicitly into the simulation).
Swot Analysis of "Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B)" written by Samuel E Bodily, Robert Jenkins includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Saturday Attendance facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Decision making, Risk management and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
wage bills are increasing, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Saturday Attendance, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Saturday Attendance 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 Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Saturday Attendance
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 Saturday Attendance
Strengths Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Saturday Attendance in Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Saturday Attendance 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 Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Saturday Attendance 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 Saturday Attendance is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Saturday Attendance 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 Saturday Attendance in the sector have low bargaining power. Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Saturday Attendance to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Saturday Attendance digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Saturday Attendance 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Saturday Attendance 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 Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Saturday Attendance
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Saturday Attendance does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management
– Saturday Attendance is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Saturday Attendance 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 Saturday Attendance in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Saturday Attendance 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Saturday Attendance in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Saturday Attendance has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) 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.
Weaknesses Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) 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 Saturday Attendance 's lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Saturday Attendance, firm in the HBR case study Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B), it seems that the employees of Saturday Attendance 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Saturday Attendance 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. Saturday Attendance 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 Saturday Attendance products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Saturday Attendance needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) 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 Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Saturday Attendance is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Saturday Attendance 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Samuel E Bodily, Robert Jenkins suggests that, Saturday Attendance 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B), in the dynamic environment Saturday Attendance has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Saturday Attendance has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Saturday Attendance 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 harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Saturday Attendance is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Opportunities Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) | 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 Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Saturday Attendance 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, Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Saturday Attendance 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Saturday Attendance 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Saturday Attendance 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.
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 Saturday Attendance 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Saturday Attendance 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 Saturday Attendance has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Saturday Attendance to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) case study. Saturday Attendance can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Saturday Attendance to increase its market reach. Saturday Attendance 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.
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. Saturday Attendance 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. Saturday Attendance 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
– Saturday Attendance 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.
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 Saturday Attendance in the consumer business. Now Saturday Attendance can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Saturday Attendance is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Saturday Attendance 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 Saturday Attendance to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Saturday Attendance 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Saturday Attendance 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.
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 wage structure of Saturday Attendance
– 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 Saturday Attendance.
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. Saturday Attendance needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Saturday Attendance 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 Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) .
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 Saturday Attendance in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Saturday Attendance is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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 Saturday Attendance business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Saturday Attendance with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Saturday Attendance 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Saturday Attendance 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) 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 Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) 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 Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) 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 Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) 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 Lac Leman Festival de la Musique (B) 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 Saturday Attendance needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
