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Value Innovation By Chobani SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution

Case Study Description of Value Innovation By Chobani


Founded in 2005, Greek yogourt maker Chobani used value innovation to become the number one yogourt brand in the United States by 2011. However, due to some internal problems such as a lack of seasoned professionals and financial resources, and external factors such as competition and decline in demand, Chobani lost its market share to competitors starting in early 2013. With help from a private venture firm, Chobani took several steps to turn things around by 2016. Will Chobani be able to regain its leadership position going forward? If so, how will it fuel its growth? Arpita Agnihotri is affiliated with Northland College. Saurabh Bhattacharya is affiliated with Newcastle University.

Authors :: Arpita Agnihotri, Saurabh Bhattacharya

Topics :: Leadership & Managing People

Tags :: Entrepreneurship, Manufacturing, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis

Swot Analysis of "Value Innovation By Chobani" written by Arpita Agnihotri, Saurabh Bhattacharya includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Chobani Yogourt facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Value Innovation By Chobani case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Manufacturing and Leadership & Managing People.


Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Value Innovation By Chobani casestudy better are - – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Value Innovation By Chobani


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




Strengths Value Innovation By Chobani | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Chobani Yogourt in Value Innovation By Chobani Harvard Business Review case study are -

Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field

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

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Chobani Yogourt 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 Chobani Yogourt in the sector have low bargaining power. Value Innovation By Chobani has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Chobani Yogourt to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Successful track record of launching new products

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

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Chobani Yogourt 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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Chobani Yogourt is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Value Innovation By Chobani are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Chobani Yogourt 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 Value Innovation By Chobani HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Chobani Yogourt 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 Value Innovation By Chobani - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Organizational Resilience of Chobani Yogourt

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

Innovation driven organization

– Chobani Yogourt is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Value Innovation By Chobani Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.

High brand equity

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

Analytics focus

– Chobani Yogourt 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 Arpita Agnihotri, Saurabh Bhattacharya 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 Value Innovation By Chobani | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Value Innovation By Chobani are -

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Chobani Yogourt 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. Chobani Yogourt 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– It come across in the case study Value Innovation By Chobani 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 Value Innovation By Chobani can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Chobani Yogourt is planning to shift buying processes online.

Need for greater diversity

– Chobani Yogourt 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.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Chobani Yogourt 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 - Value Innovation By Chobani should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

High bargaining power of channel partners

– Because of the regulatory requirements, Arpita Agnihotri, Saurabh Bhattacharya suggests that, Chobani Yogourt 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Value Innovation By Chobani, is just above the industry average. Chobani Yogourt 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.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Chobani Yogourt 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.

No frontier risks strategy

– After analyzing the HBR case study Value Innovation By Chobani, 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 Chobani Yogourt supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Value Innovation By Chobani, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Chobani Yogourt vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Value Innovation By Chobani 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 Chobani Yogourt 's lucrative customers.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Chobani Yogourt, firm in the HBR case study Value Innovation By Chobani needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.




Opportunities Value Innovation By Chobani | 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 Value Innovation By Chobani are -

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Chobani Yogourt 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Chobani Yogourt has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Chobani Yogourt to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Value Innovation By Chobani case study. Chobani Yogourt can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Loyalty marketing

– Chobani Yogourt 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Chobani Yogourt 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

– Chobani Yogourt 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Chobani Yogourt 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Chobani Yogourt 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, Value Innovation By Chobani, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Buying journey improvements

– Chobani Yogourt can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Value Innovation By Chobani 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.

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 Chobani Yogourt in the consumer business. Now Chobani Yogourt can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Chobani Yogourt can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Chobani Yogourt operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.

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. Chobani Yogourt 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. Chobani Yogourt 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.

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 Chobani Yogourt to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.




Threats Value Innovation By Chobani External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Value Innovation By Chobani are -

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 Chobani Yogourt.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Chobani Yogourt 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 Value Innovation By Chobani .

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 Chobani Yogourt business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Chobani Yogourt with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.

Shortening product life cycle

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

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Chobani Yogourt 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.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Chobani Yogourt has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Chobani Yogourt 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.

Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc

– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.

Instability in the European markets

– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Chobani Yogourt 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.

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. Chobani Yogourt 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

– Chobani Yogourt 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.

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. Chobani Yogourt needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Chobani Yogourt 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.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of Value Innovation By Chobani 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 Value Innovation By Chobani 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 Value Innovation By Chobani 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 Value Innovation By Chobani 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 Value Innovation By Chobani 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 Chobani Yogourt needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.



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