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Martha Stewart (B) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution

Case Study Description of Martha Stewart (B)


Supplements the (A) case.

Authors :: Lynn Sharp Paine, Christopher M. Bruner

Topics :: Leadership & Managing People

Tags :: Corporate governance, Ethics, Regulation, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis

Swot Analysis of "Martha Stewart (B)" written by Lynn Sharp Paine, Christopher M. Bruner includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Stewart Martha facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Martha Stewart (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Corporate governance, Ethics, Regulation and Leadership & Managing People.


Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Martha Stewart (B) casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Martha Stewart (B)


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Martha Stewart (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Stewart Martha, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Stewart Martha 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 Martha Stewart (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Martha Stewart (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Stewart Martha
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 Stewart Martha




Strengths Martha Stewart (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Stewart Martha in Martha Stewart (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -

Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Stewart Martha digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Stewart Martha 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.

Learning organization

- Stewart Martha 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 Stewart Martha is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Martha Stewart (B) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Innovation driven organization

– Stewart Martha is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Martha Stewart (B) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.

High brand equity

– Stewart Martha has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Stewart Martha to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Stewart Martha 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 recruit top talent

– Stewart Martha is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Martha Stewart (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.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Stewart Martha has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Stewart Martha 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.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy in the Martha Stewart (B) 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.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry

– Martha Stewart (B) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Stewart Martha to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Stewart Martha to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Stewart Martha in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Stewart Martha in the sector have low bargaining power. Martha Stewart (B) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Stewart Martha to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Stewart Martha 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 Martha Stewart (B) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.






Weaknesses Martha Stewart (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Martha Stewart (B) are -

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Stewart Martha 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.

Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy

– From the instances in the HBR case study Martha Stewart (B), it seems that the employees of Stewart Martha 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of Stewart Martha products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Stewart Martha needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

High dependence on existing supply chain

– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Stewart Martha supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Martha Stewart (B), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Stewart Martha vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Stewart Martha is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Stewart Martha needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Stewart Martha to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Stewart Martha 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Martha Stewart (B), is just above the industry average. Stewart Martha 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.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Martha Stewart (B) 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 Stewart Martha 's lucrative customers.

Need for greater diversity

– Stewart Martha 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.

No frontier risks strategy

– After analyzing the HBR case study Martha Stewart (B), it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Leadership & Managing People 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.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Stewart Martha 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. Stewart Martha 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 Martha Stewart (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 Martha Stewart (B) are -

Leveraging digital technologies

– Stewart Martha 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Stewart Martha 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 Stewart Martha to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Stewart Martha 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 Martha Stewart (B) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Stewart Martha 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 Stewart Martha 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Stewart Martha 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.

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. Stewart Martha can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Stewart Martha 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, Martha Stewart (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.

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 Stewart Martha in the consumer business. Now Stewart Martha can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Buying journey improvements

– Stewart Martha can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Martha Stewart (B) 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Stewart Martha can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Stewart Martha in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Leadership & Managing People segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Developing new processes and practices

– Stewart Martha 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Stewart Martha can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Stewart Martha operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.




Threats Martha Stewart (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Martha Stewart (B) are -

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. Stewart Martha will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.

High 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. Stewart Martha needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Environmental challenges

– Stewart Martha 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. Stewart Martha can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.

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 Stewart Martha.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Stewart Martha has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Stewart Martha needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Leadership & Managing People 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.

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.

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 Stewart Martha in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline 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 Martha Stewart (B), Stewart Martha 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 .

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Stewart Martha with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Stewart Martha 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.

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 Stewart Martha business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Stewart Martha 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

– Stewart Martha 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.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of Martha Stewart (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 Martha Stewart (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 Martha Stewart (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 Martha Stewart (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 Martha Stewart (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 Stewart Martha needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.



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