Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights
In 2012, Golan Heights Wines wanted to take advantage of the Chinese market. In recent years, China had demonstrated incredible growth in the wine market. Consumers' growing interest in wine products had made wineries and vineyards like Golan Heights hungry for entry. The CEO of Golan Heights Winery had gone to China with her products in 2009. She had chosen distributorships as the mode of entry because of their expertise and experience in the Chinese market, something she did not possess. Since she had entered the market, however, she had learned of the seemingly disappointing demand for Israeli wines. Sales were rather limited given the size of the market. Most Chinese consumers who sought imported wines wanted them from Europe, particularly France. Additionally, vendors and distributors did a poor job of pushing Israel products. The CEO needed to devise and execute a series of strategies to better take advantage of the impressive Chinese market, establish a brand for Golan Heights Wines and create a platform for future growth. Authors Ilan Alon, Jennifer Dugosh and Meredith Lohwasser are affiliated with Rollins College.
Authors :: Ilan Alon, Jennifer Dugosh, Meredith Lohwasser
Swot Analysis of "Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights" written by Ilan Alon, Jennifer Dugosh, Meredith Lohwasser includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Golan Heights facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights casestudy better are - – technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Golan Heights, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Golan Heights 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 Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Golan Heights
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 Golan Heights
Strengths Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Golan Heights in Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights Harvard Business Review case study are -
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Golan Heights digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Golan Heights 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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Golan Heights 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 Golan Heights 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)
– Golan Heights 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 Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Golan Heights 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 Ilan Alon, Jennifer Dugosh, Meredith Lohwasser 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Golan Heights is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Innovation driven organization
– Golan Heights is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Golan Heights 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Golan Heights has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Golan Heights has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Golan Heights to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Golan Heights to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Golan Heights has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Golan Heights to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Golan Heights 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 Golan Heights is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Golan Heights is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights 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.
Weaknesses Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights HBR case study mentions - Golan Heights 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, Golan Heights 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Golan Heights 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Golan Heights 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Golan Heights 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Golan Heights is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Ilan Alon, Jennifer Dugosh, Meredith Lohwasser suggests that, Golan Heights is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Golan Heights 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. Golan Heights 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 Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights 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 Golan Heights has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights, 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights, in the dynamic environment Golan Heights has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Golan Heights has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Opportunities Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights | 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 Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Golan Heights has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Golan Heights to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights case study. Golan Heights can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Golan Heights 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, Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Developing new processes and practices
– Golan Heights 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Golan Heights 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.
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. Golan Heights 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. Golan Heights 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Golan Heights 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Golan Heights 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 Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Golan Heights to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Golan Heights can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Golan Heights 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 Golan Heights in the consumer business. Now Golan Heights can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Golan Heights to increase its market reach. Golan Heights 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Golan Heights can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Golan Heights 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.
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 Golan Heights 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.
Threats Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Golan Heights 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 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.
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. Golan Heights 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.
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 Golan Heights.
Regulatory challenges
– Golan Heights 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights, Golan Heights 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 .
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 Golan Heights business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Golan Heights is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Golan Heights 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 Golan Heights in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Golan Heights 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Golan Heights 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights 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 Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights 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 Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights 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 Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights 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 Israeli Wines in China: Reaching for New Heights 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 Golan Heights needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.