Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King
Follows the rise and fall of the founder of the modern supermarket, Clarence Saunders. Prior to 1915, all staple shopping took place in the market or general store, where a clerk behind a counter pulled items from shelves for customers , measured them from a barrel, or retrieved them from the back of the store. The clerk tallied costs and added them to a customer's credit account. Purchases were then either delivered to a home or handed over on the spot--not a terribly efficient process. The entire ritual of shopping for food changed with the vision of Clarence Saunders and his Piggly Wiggly store.
Swot Analysis of "Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King" written by Nitin Nohria, Bridget Gurtler includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Clarence Saunders facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing, Organizational culture and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Clarence Saunders, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Clarence Saunders 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 Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Clarence Saunders
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 Clarence Saunders
Strengths Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Clarence Saunders in Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Clarence Saunders 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 Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Clarence Saunders has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Clarence Saunders 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Clarence Saunders 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Clarence Saunders 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 Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Clarence Saunders 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 Clarence Saunders is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Clarence Saunders is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Clarence Saunders is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Clarence Saunders 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 Clarence Saunders in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Clarence Saunders is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Training and development
– Clarence Saunders has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King 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.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Clarence Saunders digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Clarence Saunders 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.
Weaknesses Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King, it seems that the employees of Clarence Saunders 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King, 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Clarence Saunders, firm in the HBR case study Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King HBR case study mentions - Clarence Saunders 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Clarence Saunders 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. Clarence Saunders 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Clarence Saunders 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Clarence Saunders 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King 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 Clarence Saunders has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Clarence Saunders is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Clarence Saunders 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Clarence Saunders 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.
Opportunities Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King | 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 Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Clarence Saunders can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Clarence Saunders 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Clarence Saunders can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King 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.
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. Clarence Saunders 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. Clarence Saunders 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Clarence Saunders 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 Clarence Saunders to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Clarence Saunders can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Clarence Saunders 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Clarence Saunders is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Clarence Saunders 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Clarence Saunders 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Clarence Saunders 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Clarence Saunders can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Clarence Saunders operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
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 Clarence Saunders in the consumer business. Now Clarence Saunders can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Clarence Saunders 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.
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 Clarence Saunders.
Regulatory challenges
– Clarence Saunders 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 Leadership & Managing People industry regulations.
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 Clarence Saunders business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Clarence Saunders
– 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 Clarence Saunders.
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.
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. Clarence Saunders 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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Clarence Saunders 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 Clarence Saunders with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Clarence Saunders 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. Clarence Saunders 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, Clarence Saunders 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 Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King .
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 Clarence Saunders in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King 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 Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King 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 Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King 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 Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King 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 Clarence Saunders: The Comeback King 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 Clarence Saunders needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
