For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A)
Vineland Research and Innovation Center, a not-for-profit organization looking to work with the Ontario local food industry, has requested two researchers to analyze the local food business landscape and propose a technology-driven solution that connects farmers in the Niagara region with buyers in Toronto. The case illustrates the challenges faced by each stakeholder in the local food supply chain, and allows students to analyze the farming and restaurant industries, assess the current Canadian market, and investigate technological advances that could enable improving the current local supply chain procurement and distribution model. This case allows students to identify competencies and gaps within the current environment, challenges facing the farming and restaurant communities, as well as opportunities to drive growth in a new market.
Authors :: Nicole R.D. Haggerty, Andrea Jang, Rebecca Liu
Swot Analysis of "For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A)" written by Nicole R.D. Haggerty, Andrea Jang, Rebecca Liu includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Food Local facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Government, IT and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, increasing energy prices,
technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Food Local, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Food Local 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 For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Food Local
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 Food Local
Strengths For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Food Local in For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Food Local 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Food Local is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Food Local in the sector have low bargaining power. For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Food Local to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Food Local
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Food Local does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Food Local has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Food Local 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Food Local to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Food Local to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Food Local 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 For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Food Local 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 For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (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.
Training and development
– Food Local has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) 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.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Food Local 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 Food Local in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Food Local is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Food Local 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.
Weaknesses For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) 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 Food Local 's lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Food Local 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Nicole R.D. Haggerty, Andrea Jang, Rebecca Liu suggests that, Food Local 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Food Local is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Food Local needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Food Local to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Food Local 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Food Local products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Food Local needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Food Local has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Food Local 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 - For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) 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 For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Food Local is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Food Local 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.
Opportunities For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (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 For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) are -
Buying journey improvements
– Food Local can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Food Local can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Food Local operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– Food Local 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.
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. Food Local 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. Food Local 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
– Food Local 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Food Local 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, For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (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.
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. Food Local can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Food Local 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Food Local has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Food Local to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) case study. Food Local can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Food Local can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Food Local 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 For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Food Local to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Food Local 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Food Local 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.
Threats For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) are -
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 Food Local.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Food Local 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Food Local 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Food Local 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Food Local with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing wage structure of Food Local
– 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 Food Local.
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. Food Local can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Food Local 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Food Local is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Food Local business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Food Local 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 For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A) .
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 Food Local in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (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 For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (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 For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (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 For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (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 For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (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 Food Local needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.