Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy
Why did United Airline's TED and Delta's Song fail while Southwest's similar model for low-cost air travel thrived? According to the author, it all comes down to company culture. Culture is one of those fuzzy terms that makes business analysts roll their eyes, he says, but its true power lies in the fact that, unlike other competitive advantages, it is nearly impossible to copy. He defines culture as 'the things that people in an organization do without thinking, often because of a precedent set by management'. As he shows, the roots of culture go very deep, and they lead companies like Southwest, Costco and IBM to the top of their industries.
Swot Analysis of "Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy" written by Sohrab Vossoughi includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Culture Fuzzy facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Strategy and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy casestudy better are - – wage bills are increasing, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Culture Fuzzy, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Culture Fuzzy 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 Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Culture Fuzzy
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 Culture Fuzzy
Strengths Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Culture Fuzzy in Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Culture Fuzzy has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Culture Fuzzy to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Culture Fuzzy 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Culture Fuzzy in the sector have low bargaining power. Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Culture Fuzzy to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Culture Fuzzy
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Culture Fuzzy does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Culture Fuzzy is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Culture Fuzzy 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Culture Fuzzy has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Culture Fuzzy 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.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Culture Fuzzy digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Culture Fuzzy 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Culture Fuzzy 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 Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Culture Fuzzy 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 Sohrab Vossoughi 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.
Training and development
– Culture Fuzzy has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy 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 Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy, it seems that the employees of Culture Fuzzy 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, Culture Fuzzy 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. Culture Fuzzy 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy, is just above the industry average. Culture Fuzzy 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Culture Fuzzy has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Culture Fuzzy 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy 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 Culture Fuzzy has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Sohrab Vossoughi suggests that, Culture Fuzzy 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy 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 Culture Fuzzy 's lucrative customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Culture Fuzzy products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Culture Fuzzy needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Culture Fuzzy is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Culture Fuzzy, firm in the HBR case study Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy | 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 Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Culture Fuzzy 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Culture Fuzzy has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Culture Fuzzy to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy case study. Culture Fuzzy can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Culture Fuzzy 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Culture Fuzzy 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 Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Culture Fuzzy to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Culture Fuzzy 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Culture Fuzzy 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.
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. Culture Fuzzy 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. Culture Fuzzy can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Culture Fuzzy 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.
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 Culture Fuzzy in the consumer business. Now Culture Fuzzy can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Culture Fuzzy can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Culture Fuzzy to increase its market reach. Culture Fuzzy 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Culture Fuzzy can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Culture Fuzzy can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Culture Fuzzy operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Threats Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy, Culture Fuzzy 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 .
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. Culture Fuzzy can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Culture Fuzzy with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
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 Culture Fuzzy business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Culture Fuzzy 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.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Culture Fuzzy 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.
Increasing wage structure of Culture Fuzzy
– 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 Culture Fuzzy.
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. Culture Fuzzy needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Culture Fuzzy is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Culture Fuzzy 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.
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. Culture Fuzzy 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy 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 Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy 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 Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy 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 Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy 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 Secret Recipes: The Power of Culture in an Experience Economy 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 Culture Fuzzy needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.