Case Study Description of Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers
Colgate-Palmolive, the U.S.-based consumer products firm, has long emphasized international experience for its managers and has developed a comprehensive policy to manage expatriate assignments. The rise in dual-career families has made some managers reluctant to accept foreign assignments, causing Colgate-Palmolive to reexamine the way it manages international career development.
Swot Analysis of "Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers" written by Philip M. Rosenzweig includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Colgate Palmolive facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Developing employees, International business, Leadership development, Work-life balance and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Colgate Palmolive, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Colgate Palmolive 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 Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Colgate Palmolive
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 Colgate Palmolive
Strengths Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Colgate Palmolive in Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Colgate Palmolive 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 Colgate Palmolive in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Colgate Palmolive 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 Colgate Palmolive is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Colgate Palmolive is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Colgate Palmolive to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Colgate Palmolive to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers 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
– Colgate Palmolive 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 Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers 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 Colgate Palmolive in the sector have low bargaining power. Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Colgate Palmolive to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Colgate Palmolive 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.
High brand equity
– Colgate Palmolive has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Colgate Palmolive to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Colgate Palmolive has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers 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 Colgate Palmolive digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Colgate Palmolive 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.
Analytics focus
– Colgate Palmolive 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 Philip M. Rosenzweig 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 Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers are -
Need for greater diversity
– Colgate Palmolive 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Colgate Palmolive 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Philip M. Rosenzweig suggests that, Colgate Palmolive 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers 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 Colgate Palmolive has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Colgate Palmolive is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Colgate Palmolive 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 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 Colgate Palmolive supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Colgate Palmolive vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers HBR case study mentions - Colgate Palmolive 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Colgate Palmolive 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 - Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Colgate Palmolive is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers 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 Colgate Palmolive 's lucrative customers.
Opportunities Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers | 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 Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Colgate Palmolive 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Colgate Palmolive 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 Colgate Palmolive 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Colgate Palmolive can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Colgate Palmolive 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, Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Colgate Palmolive 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. Colgate Palmolive 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.
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. Colgate Palmolive can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Manufacturing automation
– Colgate Palmolive 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Colgate Palmolive 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Colgate Palmolive can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Colgate Palmolive operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
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. Colgate Palmolive can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Developing new processes and practices
– Colgate Palmolive 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Colgate Palmolive 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.
Threats Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Colgate Palmolive 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Colgate Palmolive has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Colgate Palmolive 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Colgate Palmolive 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Colgate Palmolive 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.
Increasing wage structure of Colgate Palmolive
– 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 Colgate Palmolive.
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 Colgate Palmolive 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.
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 Colgate Palmolive.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Colgate Palmolive 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.
Environmental challenges
– Colgate Palmolive 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. Colgate Palmolive can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Colgate Palmolive 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Colgate Palmolive 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 Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers .
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. Colgate Palmolive 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers 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 Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers 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 Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers 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 Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers 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 Colgate-Palmolive: Managing International Careers 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 Colgate Palmolive needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
