This is part of the subset of Ivey cases and technical notes written for Introductory-Level courses.The office manager at the Garden Depot was growing increasingly concerned with the inability of the landscaping manager to handle his workload and subordinates. The landscape manager's poor management left the office manager to solve the division's problems. The office manager needed to take action to reduce her workload and to ensure she received accurate information from the landscaping division. The case is designed to introduce students to managing workplace conflict and allow students to apply concepts in motivation, leadership, power and influence in an organizational context. Students are asked to form action plans from the perspective of a lower-level manager, based on limited information.
Swot Analysis of "The Garden Depot" written by Elizabeth M.A. Grasby, Karin Koopmans includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Landscaping Manager facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The Garden Depot case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Conflict, Motivating people, Organizational culture and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The Garden Depot casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The Garden Depot case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Landscaping Manager, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Landscaping Manager 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 The Garden Depot can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The Garden Depot case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Landscaping Manager
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Landscaping Manager
Strengths The Garden Depot | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Landscaping Manager in The Garden Depot Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Landscaping Manager 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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Landscaping Manager 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 Landscaping Manager in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Landscaping Manager
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Landscaping Manager does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Landscaping Manager has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Landscaping Manager to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Landscaping Manager has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Landscaping Manager 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 Leadership & Managing People industry
– The Garden Depot firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Landscaping Manager to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Landscaping Manager to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Landscaping Manager 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 The Garden Depot HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Landscaping Manager has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in The Garden Depot 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Landscaping Manager 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 Landscaping Manager in the sector have low bargaining power. The Garden Depot has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Landscaping Manager to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Landscaping Manager digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Landscaping Manager has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the The Garden Depot 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.
Weaknesses The Garden Depot | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The Garden Depot are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Landscaping Manager products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Landscaping Manager needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Landscaping Manager, firm in the HBR case study The Garden Depot needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study The Garden Depot 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 The Garden Depot can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Landscaping Manager is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Landscaping Manager 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study The Garden Depot, it seems that the employees of Landscaping Manager 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 The Garden Depot 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 Landscaping Manager has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study The Garden Depot 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 Landscaping Manager 's lucrative customers.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Landscaping Manager has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Elizabeth M.A. Grasby, Karin Koopmans suggests that, Landscaping Manager 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Landscaping Manager 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. Landscaping Manager 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Landscaping Manager 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.
Opportunities The Garden Depot | 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 The Garden Depot are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Landscaping Manager can develop new processes and procedures in Leadership & Managing People 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Landscaping Manager 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 Leadership & Managing People segment.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Landscaping Manager can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Landscaping Manager 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Leadership & Managing People industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Landscaping Manager can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Landscaping Manager can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Landscaping Manager in the consumer business. Now Landscaping Manager can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Landscaping Manager has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Landscaping Manager to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the The Garden Depot case study. Landscaping Manager can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Landscaping Manager to increase its market reach. Landscaping Manager 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Leadership & Managing People industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Landscaping Manager 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. Landscaping Manager 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Landscaping Manager 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, The Garden Depot, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Landscaping Manager 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Landscaping Manager 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 The Garden Depot - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Landscaping Manager to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats The Garden Depot External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The Garden Depot are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Landscaping Manager 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 wage structure of Landscaping Manager
– 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 Landscaping Manager.
Environmental challenges
– Landscaping Manager 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. Landscaping Manager can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
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. Landscaping Manager needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Landscaping Manager in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The Leadership & Managing People 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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study The Garden Depot, Landscaping Manager may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Leadership & Managing People .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Landscaping Manager 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Landscaping Manager is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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. Landscaping Manager 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.
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 Landscaping Manager in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Landscaping Manager business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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 Landscaping Manager.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The Garden Depot 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 The Garden Depot 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 The Garden Depot 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 The Garden Depot 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 The Garden Depot 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 Landscaping Manager needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.