Case Study Description of Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A)
By the spring of 2014, the founder of EarthWear Face & Body is in desperate need of part-time employees to help run her successful skin care retail business, which she runs out of her home in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. After eight years of hard work, she has turned her part-time hobby making all-natural skin care products into a thriving business. She sells her products online, through retail stores, at craft and trade shows and at the Saskatoon Farmers' Market. But her successful business has become too much work for her to manage on her own. A failed attempt to bring on a part-time employee made it clear that she needs to develop a targeted recruitment strategy. How can she effectively communicate her corporate culture to attract the best candidates?
Swot Analysis of "Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A)" written by Mary Weil, Julia Cutt includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Earthwear Skin facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Human resource management and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Earthwear Skin, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Earthwear Skin 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 Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Earthwear Skin
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 Earthwear Skin
Strengths Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Earthwear Skin in Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Earthwear Skin digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Earthwear Skin 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.
High brand equity
– Earthwear Skin has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Earthwear Skin to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of Earthwear Skin
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Earthwear Skin does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Earthwear Skin 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 Earthwear Skin in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Earthwear Skin to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Earthwear Skin to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Earthwear Skin 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)
– Earthwear Skin 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 Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Earthwear Skin in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Earthwear Skin has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) 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.
Learning organization
- Earthwear Skin 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 Earthwear Skin is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Earthwear Skin is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Earthwear Skin 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 Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) are -
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) 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 Earthwear Skin has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Earthwear Skin 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Earthwear Skin 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Earthwear Skin is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Mary Weil, Julia Cutt suggests that, Earthwear Skin 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A), it seems that the employees of Earthwear Skin 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 Earthwear Skin products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Earthwear Skin needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) 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 Earthwear Skin 's lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Earthwear Skin, firm in the HBR case study Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Earthwear Skin is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Earthwear Skin needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Earthwear Skin to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) HBR case study mentions - Earthwear Skin takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Opportunities Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) | 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 Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Earthwear Skin 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Earthwear Skin to increase its market reach. Earthwear Skin 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.
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. Earthwear Skin 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. Earthwear Skin 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Earthwear Skin 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.
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. Earthwear Skin can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Earthwear Skin in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Leadership & Managing People segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Earthwear Skin 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 Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Earthwear Skin to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Earthwear Skin 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Earthwear Skin 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Earthwear Skin has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Earthwear Skin to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) case study. Earthwear Skin can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Earthwear Skin can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Earthwear Skin 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, Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Earthwear Skin 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.
Threats Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) are -
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Earthwear Skin business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Earthwear Skin 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.
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 Earthwear Skin.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Earthwear Skin 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Earthwear Skin 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Earthwear Skin has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Earthwear Skin 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.
Environmental challenges
– Earthwear Skin 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. Earthwear Skin can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A), Earthwear Skin 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 .
Increasing wage structure of Earthwear Skin
– 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 Earthwear Skin.
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. Earthwear Skin 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.
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 Earthwear Skin in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Earthwear Skin 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Earthwear Skin is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) 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 Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) 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 Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) 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 Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) 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 Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) 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 Earthwear Skin needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
