For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (B) 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 (B)
This (B) case to For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (A), product #909E06, allows students to synthesize their findings and assessments from the (A) case to recommend a viable, financially sustainable technology-based solution that generates long-term benefits for the multiple parties who would be involved. Given the current focus on local food and environmental responsibility, pLateTrace is a very relevant case that raises awareness for tremendous untapped opportunities to marry inproving existing supply chain models with environmental stewardship.
Authors :: Nicole R.D. Haggerty, Andrea Jang, Rebecca Liu
Swot Analysis of "For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (B)" 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 Platetrace Love facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Technology 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 (B) casestudy better are - – increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (B)
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 (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Platetrace Love, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Platetrace Love 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 (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Platetrace Love
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 Platetrace Love
Strengths For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Platetrace Love in For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Innovation driven organization
– Platetrace Love is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (B) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Platetrace Love 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 Platetrace Love in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Platetrace Love 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 (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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Platetrace Love 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 (B) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Platetrace Love has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Platetrace Love 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Platetrace Love is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (B) 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Platetrace Love in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (B) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Platetrace Love to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Platetrace Love to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Platetrace Love has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Platetrace Love to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of Platetrace Love
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Platetrace Love does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management
– Platetrace Love 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 recruit top talent
– Platetrace Love is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (B) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (B) | 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 (B) are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Platetrace Love has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Lack of clear differentiation of Platetrace Love products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Platetrace Love needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Platetrace Love 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Nicole R.D. Haggerty, Andrea Jang, Rebecca Liu suggests that, Platetrace Love 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Platetrace Love is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (B) 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 Platetrace Love has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (B), is just above the industry average. Platetrace Love 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (B) HBR case study mentions - Platetrace Love takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Platetrace Love 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (B), it seems that the employees of Platetrace Love 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, Platetrace Love 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. Platetrace Love 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 For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (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 For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (B) are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Platetrace Love is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Platetrace Love 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 (B) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Platetrace Love to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Platetrace Love can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Platetrace Love operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Platetrace Love 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Platetrace Love 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 Platetrace Love can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Platetrace Love can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Developing new processes and practices
– Platetrace Love 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 Platetrace Love 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 Platetrace Love to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Platetrace Love 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Platetrace Love 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 (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.
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. Platetrace Love can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Platetrace Love has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Platetrace Love to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (B) case study. Platetrace Love can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (B) 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 (B) are -
Increasing wage structure of Platetrace Love
– 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 Platetrace Love.
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 Platetrace Love business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (B), Platetrace Love 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 .
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Platetrace Love has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Platetrace Love needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
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. Platetrace Love 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 Platetrace Love with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Platetrace Love is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Platetrace Love.
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 Platetrace Love in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Platetrace Love 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Platetrace Love 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (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 For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (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 For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (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 For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (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 For the Love of Good Food: The pLateTrace Project (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 Platetrace Love needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
