Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business
Over the years, Zingerman's Community of Businesses (ZCoB) has regularly won accolades and awards - including being named "the coolest small company in America" by Inc. in 2003 - for its food, service, mail order catalog, training, and overall success. This case shows how Zingerman's went from a single delicatessen in 1982 to nine unique but complementary companies with combined revenues of $45 million in 2012. It details the novel methods ZCoB employs to create "a great place to eat and work" and touches on the challenges it faces moving forward. This case can be used in conjunction with Zingerman's: New Business Development and Zingerman's: Broad-Based Ownership, Governance, & Sustainability.
Swot Analysis of "Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business" written by Wayne Baker includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Zingerman's Zcob facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Customer service, Customers, Human resource management and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business casestudy better are - – wage bills are increasing, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Zingerman's Zcob, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Zingerman's Zcob 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 Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Zingerman's Zcob
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 Zingerman's Zcob
Strengths Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Zingerman's Zcob in Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– Zingerman's Zcob is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Zingerman's Zcob 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Zingerman's Zcob in the sector have low bargaining power. Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Zingerman's Zcob to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Zingerman's Zcob 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 Zingerman's Zcob 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)
– Zingerman's Zcob 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 Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business - 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
– Zingerman's Zcob 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 Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Zingerman's Zcob is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Wayne Baker can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Zingerman's Zcob to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Zingerman's Zcob to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Zingerman's Zcob
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Zingerman's Zcob does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business 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.
High brand equity
– Zingerman's Zcob has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Zingerman's Zcob to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Zingerman's Zcob 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 Zingerman's Zcob is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Zingerman's Zcob is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business 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 Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Zingerman's Zcob is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business, is just above the industry average. Zingerman's Zcob 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Zingerman's Zcob 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Zingerman's Zcob 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Wayne Baker suggests that, Zingerman's Zcob 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 strategic competitive environment developments
– As Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business HBR case study mentions - Zingerman's Zcob 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Zingerman's Zcob 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business, it seems that the employees of Zingerman's Zcob 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, Zingerman's Zcob 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. Zingerman's Zcob 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business 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 Zingerman's Zcob has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business | 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 Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Zingerman's Zcob to increase its market reach. Zingerman's Zcob 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Zingerman's Zcob can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Zingerman's Zcob has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Zingerman's Zcob to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business case study. Zingerman's Zcob can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Zingerman's Zcob 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Zingerman's Zcob 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Zingerman's Zcob can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Zingerman's Zcob operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Zingerman's Zcob can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Zingerman's Zcob 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, Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Zingerman's Zcob is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Zingerman's Zcob 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Zingerman's Zcob can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Zingerman's Zcob 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.
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. Zingerman's Zcob can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business are -
Increasing wage structure of Zingerman's Zcob
– 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 Zingerman's Zcob.
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. Zingerman's Zcob needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Zingerman's Zcob demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Zingerman's Zcob has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Zingerman's Zcob 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.
Environmental challenges
– Zingerman's Zcob 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. Zingerman's Zcob can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Zingerman's Zcob 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 Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Zingerman's Zcob 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.
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
– Zingerman's Zcob high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Zingerman's Zcob with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Zingerman's Zcob business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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. Zingerman's Zcob 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business, Zingerman's Zcob 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 .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business 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 Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business 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 Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business 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 Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business 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 Zingerman's Community of Businesses: A Recipe for Building a Positive Business 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 Zingerman's Zcob needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
