Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead
In 2015, Britannia Industries - India's most recognized biscuit brand - had overtaken Parle as the market leader in the biscuit (cookie) category and faced stiff competition from Parle, ITC's Sunfeast, and many regional competitors. Britannia had to devise a strategy that would allow it to further consolidate its leadership position without losing market share; increasing the price alone was not an option in this highly competitive market. What could Britannia do to remain India's number-one biscuit maker? How could it stay ahead of its rivals in the area of product innovation? In a market swamped with near-identical product packaging, it had to devise a strategy that would help it avoid an identity crisis and make it the consumer's first choice. The company's senior management needed to chart a clear roadmap for the future. Sandeep Puri is affiliated with Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad.
Swot Analysis of "Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead" written by Sandeep Puri, Siddhant Chhabra, Kunal Peshin includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Britannia Biscuit facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, International business, Manufacturing, Strategy and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead casestudy better are - – wage bills are increasing, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices,
technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Britannia Biscuit, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Britannia Biscuit 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 Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Britannia Biscuit
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 Britannia Biscuit
Strengths Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Britannia Biscuit in Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead Harvard Business Review case study are -
Innovation driven organization
– Britannia Biscuit is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Analytics focus
– Britannia Biscuit 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 Sandeep Puri, Siddhant Chhabra, Kunal Peshin 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.
Organizational Resilience of Britannia Biscuit
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Britannia Biscuit does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Britannia Biscuit in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Britannia Biscuit in the sector have low bargaining power. Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Britannia Biscuit to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Britannia Biscuit 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 Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Britannia Biscuit 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 Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Britannia Biscuit to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Britannia Biscuit to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Britannia Biscuit 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 Britannia Biscuit in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Britannia Biscuit is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead 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.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Britannia Biscuit digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Britannia Biscuit 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.
Weaknesses Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead, in the dynamic environment Britannia Biscuit has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Britannia Biscuit 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, Britannia Biscuit 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead 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 Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Britannia Biscuit is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead, is just above the industry average. Britannia Biscuit needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead, 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.
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 Britannia Biscuit supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Britannia Biscuit vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Britannia Biscuit, firm in the HBR case study Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Britannia Biscuit 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Britannia Biscuit 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. Britannia Biscuit 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Britannia Biscuit is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Britannia Biscuit 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 Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead | 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 Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead are -
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 Britannia Biscuit in the consumer business. Now Britannia Biscuit can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Britannia Biscuit 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 Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Britannia Biscuit to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Britannia Biscuit has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Britannia Biscuit to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead case study. Britannia Biscuit can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Britannia Biscuit is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead 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.
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. Britannia Biscuit 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. Britannia Biscuit can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Developing new processes and practices
– Britannia Biscuit 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Britannia Biscuit 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.
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. Britannia Biscuit can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Britannia Biscuit 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, Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Britannia Biscuit 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 Britannia Biscuit 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Britannia Biscuit 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Britannia Biscuit can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead are -
Increasing wage structure of Britannia Biscuit
– 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 Britannia Biscuit.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Britannia Biscuit 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 Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Britannia Biscuit has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Britannia Biscuit 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Britannia Biscuit with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Britannia Biscuit 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.
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 Britannia Biscuit in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Britannia Biscuit 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Britannia Biscuit is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Britannia Biscuit 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Britannia Biscuit 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.
Environmental challenges
– Britannia Biscuit 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. Britannia Biscuit can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
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 Britannia Biscuit business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Britannia Biscuit 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 Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead 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 Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead 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 Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead 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 Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead 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 Britannia Industries: Maintaining a Market Lead 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 Britannia Biscuit needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.