Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict
In 2007, the chairman of Supor Group led the company in a new venture in the sanitary ware industry. Supor Group was the first listed company in the Chinese cookware market, and Supor Sanitary Ware Co., Ltd. (Supor) was Supor Group's most important industry. Supor established three production bases in Zhejiang and Shenyang, China. Its marketing channels included brand agents and direct-sale stores. The company also opened an online flagship store on Tmall, a Chinese-language website for business-to-consumer online retail. Since its performance on Tmall was poor, the company outsourced this channel to Company X. However, this led to channel conflict between online and offline channels. How could Supor Group resolve the conflict, improve channel performance, and achieve channel synergy? Miao Cui is affiliated with Dalian University of Technology.
Authors :: Miao Cui, Yiwei Du, Jingqin Su, Sitara Aziz
Swot Analysis of "Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict" written by Miao Cui, Yiwei Du, Jingqin Su, Sitara Aziz includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Supor Channel facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Sales and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Supor Channel, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Supor Channel 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 Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Supor Channel
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 Supor Channel
Strengths Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Supor Channel in Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict Harvard Business Review case study are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Supor Channel to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Supor Channel to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict 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.
Learning organization
- Supor Channel 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 Supor Channel is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Supor Channel 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Supor Channel 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 Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Supor Channel in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Supor Channel is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict 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.
Training and development
– Supor Channel has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Supor Channel 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 lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Supor Channel 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 Supor Channel in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management
– Supor Channel is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Supor Channel 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 Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Supor Channel 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict, it seems that the employees of Supor Channel 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict, 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Supor Channel 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Miao Cui, Yiwei Du, Jingqin Su, Sitara Aziz suggests that, Supor Channel 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Supor Channel 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. Supor Channel 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict, is just above the industry average. Supor Channel 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.
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 Supor Channel supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Supor Channel vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict 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 Supor Channel 's lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Supor Channel, firm in the HBR case study Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Supor Channel 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 - Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Opportunities Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict | 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 Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict are -
Loyalty marketing
– Supor Channel 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Supor Channel 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Supor Channel 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.
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 Supor Channel in the consumer business. Now Supor Channel can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Supor Channel has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Supor Channel to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict case study. Supor Channel can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Supor Channel to increase its market reach. Supor Channel 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.
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. Supor Channel can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Supor Channel is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Supor Channel 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Supor Channel can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Supor Channel operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– Supor Channel 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Supor Channel 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 Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Supor Channel to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Supor Channel can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Leadership & Managing People segment.
Threats Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Supor Channel 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
– Supor Channel 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.
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 Supor Channel.
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. Supor Channel can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict, Supor Channel may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Leadership & Managing People .
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 Supor Channel in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Supor Channel 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 Supor Channel 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 Supor Channel
– 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 Supor Channel.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Supor Channel 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
– Supor Channel 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.
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. Supor Channel needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Supor Channel business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict 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 Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict 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 Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict 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 Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict 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 Supor: How to Resolve Channel Conflict 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 Supor Channel needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
