Case Study Description of Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C)
This is Case C in a three-case series. In December 2015, the managing director and chief executive officer of Sunitha Nath Boutiques in Bengaluru, discovered that her most trusted employee had abandoned and deceived her. She had recruited the employee as an intern and mentored him during his growth within the organization, eventually promoting him to the post of studio manager with complete power to run the business in her absence. But the employee had quit his job without giving any notice; stolen confidential information, designs, and documents relating to the business; and started his own competing design firm in Bengaluru. One of Sunitha Nath Boutiques's important projects had been terminated by email a little while earlier, and the rumour was that her ex-employee was continuing to work on that project under his new design firm. In this case, the managing director and her lawyer reviewed the nature of confidential information and trade secrets. They also explored what intellectual property rights the managing director had and how she might prevent her ex-employee and others from misappropriating or stealing that information. See Case A and Case B. Nithyananda KV is affiliated with Indian Institute of Management Tiruchirappalli.
Swot Analysis of "Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C)" written by Nithyananda KV includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Nath Sunitha facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) casestudy better are - – increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Nath Sunitha, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Nath Sunitha 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 Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Nath Sunitha
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 Nath Sunitha
Strengths Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Nath Sunitha in Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Nath Sunitha is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Nath Sunitha 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 Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Nath Sunitha has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Nath Sunitha 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.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Nath Sunitha digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Nath Sunitha 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Nath Sunitha in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Nath Sunitha 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 Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Nath Sunitha 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 Nath Sunitha is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Nath Sunitha has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Nath Sunitha in the sector have low bargaining power. Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Nath Sunitha to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Nath Sunitha 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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Nath Sunitha 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 Nath Sunitha in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Nath Sunitha 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Nath Sunitha products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Nath Sunitha needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Nath Sunitha, firm in the HBR case study Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
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 Nath Sunitha supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Nath Sunitha vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) 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 Nath Sunitha 's lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C), 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 Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C), in the dynamic environment Nath Sunitha has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Nath Sunitha has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C), it seems that the employees of Nath Sunitha 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) HBR case study mentions - Nath Sunitha 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 Nath Sunitha 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 - Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Nath Sunitha has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Opportunities Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) | 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 Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Nath Sunitha can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Nath Sunitha can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Nath Sunitha operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Nath Sunitha can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Leadership & Managing People industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Nath Sunitha 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. Nath Sunitha 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, Nath Sunitha 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Nath Sunitha 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, Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Nath Sunitha 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 Nath Sunitha to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Nath Sunitha has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Nath Sunitha to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) case study. Nath Sunitha can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Nath Sunitha 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Nath Sunitha 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 Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Nath Sunitha to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Nath Sunitha 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Nath Sunitha to increase its market reach. Nath Sunitha 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.
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 Nath Sunitha in the consumer business. Now Nath Sunitha can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) are -
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 Nath Sunitha business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Nath Sunitha 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Nath Sunitha 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.
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. Nath Sunitha 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.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Nath Sunitha 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 Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) .
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Nath Sunitha 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. Nath Sunitha can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Nath Sunitha 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 Nath Sunitha with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing wage structure of Nath Sunitha
– 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 Nath Sunitha.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Nath Sunitha needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) 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 Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) 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 Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) 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 Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) 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 Sunitha Nath Boutiques: Intellectual Property Rights (C) 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 Nath Sunitha needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.