A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B)
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's Physical Activity and Nutrition Program needed to come up with an innovative solution to the many health problems, such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease that plagued residents of poorer areas in the city, while increasing economic opportunity for neighborhood residents. The result was the launching of Green Carts, a new mobile food vending initiative to support the introduction of healthier food options to residents of "food deserts" in New York City boroughs. The challenge was navigating the diverse landscape of players and engaging all of the relevant stakeholders to come up with a solution that was both feasible and sustainable. This case exemplifies the how partnership and strategic alliances can be used to have significant social impact. The beauty of this example is that it simultaneously addresses two large social issues: 1) access to healthy food options in urban food deserts and 2) creating self-employment opportunities for members of disadvantaged communities. This case also illustrates how the public sector can act as social innovators.
Swot Analysis of "A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B)" written by Jamie Jones, Jennifer Rowland includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Deserts Food facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Joint ventures, Social responsibility and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B) casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing commodity prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Deserts Food, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Deserts Food 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 A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Deserts Food
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 Deserts Food
Strengths A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Deserts Food in A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Deserts Food 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 A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Deserts Food 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.
Organizational Resilience of Deserts Food
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Deserts Food 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 A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Deserts Food in the sector have low bargaining power. A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Deserts Food to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Deserts Food 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 Deserts Food is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Deserts Food in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Deserts Food has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B) 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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Deserts Food 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 Deserts Food in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Deserts Food to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Deserts Food to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Deserts Food 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 A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Deserts Food 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 Jamie Jones, Jennifer Rowland 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.
Weaknesses A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B) are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B) HBR case study mentions - Deserts Food 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Deserts Food has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Deserts Food 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Deserts Food 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Deserts Food is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B) can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Deserts Food 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Deserts Food 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (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 Deserts Food 's lucrative customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Deserts Food is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Deserts Food needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Deserts Food to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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 Deserts Food supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Deserts Food vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Deserts Food products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Deserts Food needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (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 A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B) are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Deserts Food can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Deserts Food operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
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. Deserts Food 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. Deserts Food 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Deserts Food 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Deserts Food 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 Deserts Food to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Deserts Food 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Deserts Food 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
– Deserts Food 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Deserts Food 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Deserts Food to increase its market reach. Deserts Food 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.
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. Deserts Food 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, Deserts Food 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, A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Deserts Food is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B) 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.
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 Deserts Food in the consumer business. Now Deserts Food can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (B) are -
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 Deserts Food.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Deserts Food 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Deserts Food with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Deserts Food in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Deserts Food 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. Deserts Food can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Increasing wage structure of Deserts Food
– 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 Deserts Food.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Deserts Food 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Deserts Food 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Deserts Food has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Deserts Food 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Deserts Food is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Deserts Food business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Deserts Food 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (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 A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (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 A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (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 A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (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 A City's Desert: No Apples in the Big Apple? (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 Deserts Food needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
