Swot Analysis of "PETA: Escalation" written by Michael Sider, Gerard Seijts includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Peta's Cruelty facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in PETA: Escalation case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Corporate communications, Crisis management, Ethics, Social responsibility and Communication.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the PETA: Escalation casestudy better are - – wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in PETA: Escalation case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Peta's Cruelty, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Peta's Cruelty 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 PETA: Escalation can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in PETA: Escalation case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Peta's Cruelty
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Communication field.
4. Making a Communication topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Peta's Cruelty
Strengths PETA: Escalation | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Peta's Cruelty in PETA: Escalation Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Peta's Cruelty has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in PETA: Escalation 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Peta's Cruelty 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the PETA: Escalation 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Peta's Cruelty in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Peta's Cruelty is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Peta's Cruelty is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in PETA: Escalation Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Peta's Cruelty is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Communication industry
– PETA: Escalation firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Peta's Cruelty to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Communication industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Peta's Cruelty to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Peta's Cruelty 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.
Digital Transformation in Communication segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Peta's Cruelty digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Peta's Cruelty 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Peta's Cruelty is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in PETA: Escalation 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)
– Peta's Cruelty 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 PETA: Escalation - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– Peta's Cruelty is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in PETA: Escalation 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.
Weaknesses PETA: Escalation | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of PETA: Escalation are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study PETA: Escalation, is just above the industry average. Peta's Cruelty 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Peta's Cruelty, firm in the HBR case study PETA: Escalation needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Peta's Cruelty is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study PETA: Escalation can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Peta's Cruelty 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Peta's Cruelty 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Peta's Cruelty 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Michael Sider, Gerard Seijts suggests that, Peta's Cruelty 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 Peta's Cruelty is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Communication segment. Peta's Cruelty needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Peta's Cruelty to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As PETA: Escalation HBR case study mentions - Peta's Cruelty 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study PETA: Escalation 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 Peta's Cruelty 's lucrative customers.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the PETA: Escalation 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 Peta's Cruelty has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities PETA: Escalation | 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 PETA: Escalation are -
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. Peta's Cruelty can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Peta's Cruelty has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Peta's Cruelty to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the PETA: Escalation case study. Peta's Cruelty 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, Peta's Cruelty 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Peta's Cruelty is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. PETA: Escalation 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
– Peta's Cruelty 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 PETA: Escalation - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Peta's Cruelty 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, Peta's Cruelty can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Peta's Cruelty operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Communication sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Peta's Cruelty 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 Communication segment.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Peta's Cruelty 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Peta's Cruelty in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Communication segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Communication industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Peta's Cruelty can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Peta's Cruelty to increase its market reach. Peta's Cruelty 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Peta's Cruelty 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, Peta's Cruelty 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, PETA: Escalation, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats PETA: Escalation External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study PETA: Escalation are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Communication field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Peta's Cruelty can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Peta's Cruelty 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Peta's Cruelty 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 PETA: Escalation .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Peta's Cruelty with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Peta's Cruelty 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Peta's Cruelty is facing in Communication sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Peta's Cruelty 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.
Increasing wage structure of Peta's Cruelty
– 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 Peta's Cruelty.
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 Peta's Cruelty.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Peta's Cruelty in the Communication industry. The Communication 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.
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 Peta's Cruelty business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Peta's Cruelty 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 Communication industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of PETA: Escalation 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 PETA: Escalation 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 PETA: Escalation 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 PETA: Escalation 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 PETA: Escalation 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 Peta's Cruelty needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.