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General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution

Case Study Description of General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B)


Supplement case to W14003.

Authors :: J. Robert Mitchell, Ken Mark

Topics :: Leadership & Managing People

Tags :: Human resource management, Innovation, Marketing, Organizational culture, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis

Swot Analysis of "General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B)" written by J. Robert Mitchell, Ken Mark includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that W14003 Mills facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Human resource management, Innovation, Marketing, Organizational culture and Leadership & Managing People.


Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B)


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the W14003 Mills, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which W14003 Mills 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 General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of W14003 Mills
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 W14003 Mills




Strengths General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of W14003 Mills in General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -

Training and development

– W14003 Mills has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (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.

High brand equity

– W14003 Mills has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled W14003 Mills to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Successful track record of launching new products

– W14003 Mills has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. W14003 Mills 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– W14003 Mills 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 General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of W14003 Mills in the sector have low bargaining power. General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps W14003 Mills to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Learning organization

- W14003 Mills 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 W14003 Mills is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field

– W14003 Mills 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 W14003 Mills in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Analytics focus

– W14003 Mills 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 J. Robert Mitchell, Ken Mark 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– W14003 Mills is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) 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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– W14003 Mills is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Innovation driven organization

– W14003 Mills is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.

Organizational Resilience of W14003 Mills

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that W14003 Mills does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.



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Net Promoter Score



Weaknesses General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) are -

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, W14003 Mills 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.

Products dominated business model

– Even though W14003 Mills has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, W14003 Mills 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of W14003 Mills, firm in the HBR case study General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy

– From the instances in the HBR case study General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B), it seems that the employees of W14003 Mills 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.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B), in the dynamic environment W14003 Mills has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. W14003 Mills has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, W14003 Mills 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.

No frontier risks strategy

– After analyzing the HBR case study General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B), it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Leadership & Managing People strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, W14003 Mills is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (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.

Lack of clear differentiation of W14003 Mills products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, W14003 Mills needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) HBR case study mentions - W14003 Mills 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.




Opportunities General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (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 General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) are -

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects W14003 Mills can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Leveraging digital technologies

– W14003 Mills 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, W14003 Mills 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, General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (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.

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. W14003 Mills can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for W14003 Mills 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, W14003 Mills is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for W14003 Mills 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 W14003 Mills to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of W14003 Mills has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help W14003 Mills to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) case study. W14003 Mills can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help W14003 Mills to increase its market reach. W14003 Mills 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– W14003 Mills 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 General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help W14003 Mills 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, W14003 Mills can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that W14003 Mills operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.

Manufacturing automation

– W14003 Mills 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at W14003 Mills 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.




Threats General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats mentioned in the HBR case study General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B) are -

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (B), W14003 Mills 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 .

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. W14003 Mills 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.

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.

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 W14003 Mills.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– W14003 Mills 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.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. W14003 Mills can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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 W14003 Mills business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

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.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for W14003 Mills 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.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– W14003 Mills 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 W14003 Mills with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.

Environmental challenges

– W14003 Mills 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. W14003 Mills can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that W14003 Mills is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (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 General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (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 General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (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 General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (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 General Mills Canada: Building a Culture of Innovation (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 W14003 Mills needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.



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