Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters
The 'founding mother' of the organic, locally-grown and slow-food movements describes the roots of her vision and the importance of teaching young children how to eat. She describes how she created a new model for fine dining that took the best elements from intimidating French restaurants and relaxed, 'cheap and cheerful' restaurants to create a welcoming environment with top-calibre service. She also describes how her food philosophy evolved, beginning with the teachings of Maria Montessori and the importance of educating all five of the senses.
Swot Analysis of "Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters" written by Alice Waters, Karen Christensen includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Restaurants Cheerful facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Restaurants Cheerful, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Restaurants Cheerful 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 Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Restaurants Cheerful
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 Restaurants Cheerful
Strengths Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Restaurants Cheerful in Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters Harvard Business Review case study are -
Innovation driven organization
– Restaurants Cheerful is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Restaurants Cheerful 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 Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Restaurants Cheerful is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Restaurants Cheerful in the sector have low bargaining power. Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Restaurants Cheerful to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Restaurants Cheerful 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 Restaurants Cheerful in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Training and development
– Restaurants Cheerful has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters 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.
High brand equity
– Restaurants Cheerful has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Restaurants Cheerful to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Restaurants Cheerful 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Restaurants Cheerful in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Restaurants Cheerful 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 Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Restaurants Cheerful digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Restaurants Cheerful 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.
Weaknesses Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Restaurants Cheerful 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Restaurants Cheerful 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 - Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters, is just above the industry average. Restaurants Cheerful 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters, it seems that the employees of Restaurants Cheerful 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters 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 Restaurants Cheerful has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Restaurants Cheerful products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Restaurants Cheerful needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Restaurants Cheerful supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Restaurants Cheerful vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Restaurants Cheerful has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Restaurants Cheerful 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Restaurants Cheerful 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Restaurants Cheerful 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. Restaurants Cheerful 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.
Opportunities Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters | 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 Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters 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. Restaurants Cheerful 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. Restaurants Cheerful 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.
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. Restaurants Cheerful can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Restaurants Cheerful 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, Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Restaurants Cheerful can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Restaurants Cheerful operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Restaurants Cheerful 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Restaurants Cheerful to increase its market reach. Restaurants Cheerful 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Restaurants Cheerful can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Restaurants Cheerful 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Restaurants Cheerful can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Restaurants Cheerful has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Restaurants Cheerful to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters case study. Restaurants Cheerful can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Restaurants Cheerful 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Restaurants Cheerful can develop new processes and procedures in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Restaurants Cheerful 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 Restaurants Cheerful to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters are -
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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Restaurants Cheerful 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.
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. Restaurants Cheerful needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Restaurants Cheerful.
Environmental challenges
– Restaurants Cheerful 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. Restaurants Cheerful can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters, Restaurants Cheerful 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 .
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 Restaurants Cheerful business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Restaurants Cheerful 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Restaurants Cheerful 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. Restaurants Cheerful can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Restaurants Cheerful
– 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 Restaurants Cheerful.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Restaurants Cheerful 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 Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters 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 Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters 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 Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters 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 Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters 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 Thought Leader Interview: Alice Waters 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 Restaurants Cheerful needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
