This case is available in only hard copy format (HBP does not have digital distribution rights to the content). As a result, a digital Educator Copy of the case is not available through this web site.Supplements the (A) case.
Swot Analysis of "Coca-Cola Co. (C)" written by David F. Hawkins includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Copy Site.supplements facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Coca-Cola Co. (C) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial management and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Coca-Cola Co. (C) casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Coca-Cola Co. (C)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Coca-Cola Co. (C) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Copy Site.supplements, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Copy Site.supplements 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 Coca-Cola Co. (C) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Coca-Cola Co. (C) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Copy Site.supplements
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Finance & Accounting field.
4. Making a Finance & Accounting topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Copy Site.supplements
Strengths Coca-Cola Co. (C) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Copy Site.supplements in Coca-Cola Co. (C) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Copy Site.supplements
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Copy Site.supplements does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management
– Copy Site.supplements is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Copy Site.supplements has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Copy Site.supplements 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.
Training and development
– Copy Site.supplements has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Coca-Cola Co. (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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Finance & Accounting industry
– Coca-Cola Co. (C) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Copy Site.supplements to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Copy Site.supplements to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Copy Site.supplements has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Copy Site.supplements to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Copy Site.supplements is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Coca-Cola Co. (C) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Copy Site.supplements 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Copy Site.supplements in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Coca-Cola Co. (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.
Ability to lead change in Finance & Accounting field
– Copy Site.supplements 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 Copy Site.supplements in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Copy Site.supplements 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 Coca-Cola Co. (C) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Coca-Cola Co. (C) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Coca-Cola Co. (C) are -
Need for greater diversity
– Copy Site.supplements 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Coca-Cola Co. (C), it seems that the employees of Copy Site.supplements 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Copy Site.supplements products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Copy Site.supplements needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Copy Site.supplements 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.
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 Copy Site.supplements supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Coca-Cola Co. (C), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Copy Site.supplements vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Copy Site.supplements is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Finance & Accounting segment. Copy Site.supplements needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Copy Site.supplements to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Copy Site.supplements, firm in the HBR case study Coca-Cola Co. (C) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Coca-Cola Co. (C) HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Copy Site.supplements has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Coca-Cola Co. (C), it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Finance & Accounting 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Copy Site.supplements has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, David F. Hawkins suggests that, Copy Site.supplements 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.
Opportunities Coca-Cola Co. (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 Coca-Cola Co. (C) are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Copy Site.supplements can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Copy Site.supplements 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 Finance & Accounting segment.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Copy Site.supplements can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Copy Site.supplements operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Finance & Accounting sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Finance & Accounting industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Copy Site.supplements 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. Copy Site.supplements 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Copy Site.supplements has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Copy Site.supplements to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Coca-Cola Co. (C) case study. Copy Site.supplements 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 Copy Site.supplements in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Finance & Accounting segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Copy Site.supplements can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Finance & Accounting segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Copy Site.supplements is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Coca-Cola Co. (C) 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.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Copy Site.supplements can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Copy Site.supplements 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.
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 Copy Site.supplements in the consumer business. Now Copy Site.supplements can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Copy Site.supplements can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Coca-Cola Co. (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.
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 Copy Site.supplements 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 Coca-Cola Co. (C) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Coca-Cola Co. (C) are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Copy Site.supplements 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Copy Site.supplements has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Finance & Accounting industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Copy Site.supplements needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Finance & Accounting 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Copy Site.supplements 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.
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 Copy Site.supplements.
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 Copy Site.supplements business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Copy Site.supplements 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 Finance & Accounting industry regulations.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Finance & Accounting field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Copy Site.supplements can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Copy Site.supplements is facing in Finance & Accounting sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Copy Site.supplements 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.
Increasing wage structure of Copy Site.supplements
– 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 Copy Site.supplements.
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.
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. Copy Site.supplements needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Finance & Accounting industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Coca-Cola Co. (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 Coca-Cola Co. (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 Coca-Cola Co. (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 Coca-Cola Co. (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 Coca-Cola Co. (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 Copy Site.supplements needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.