Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket
Vendedy was the world's first mobile network connecting global travellers to local street markets. Inspired by the emergence of the sharing economy, Vendedy's founder and chief executive officer had always been passionate about uniting social and economic empowerment with entrepreneurial development. A complex platform linking street vendors in some of the world's poorest countries to travellers seeking authentic tourism experiences and souvenirs, Vendedy's founder faced numerous challenges. Where should the venture's focus be? How quickly should she try to roll out the platform, and across how many countries? How was she going to recruit a full-time team for Vendedy? Could the company succeed in transforming how global travellers accessed the products and stories of street vendors around the world? Yusaf Akbar is affiliated with Central European University.
Swot Analysis of "Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket" written by Yusaf Akbar, Christine Souffrant includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Vendedy Travellers facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Strategy and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Vendedy Travellers, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Vendedy Travellers 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 Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Vendedy Travellers
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 Vendedy Travellers
Strengths Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Vendedy Travellers in Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– Vendedy Travellers 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 Yusaf Akbar, Christine Souffrant 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Vendedy Travellers 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 Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Vendedy Travellers in the sector have low bargaining power. Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Vendedy Travellers to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Vendedy Travellers is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Vendedy Travellers 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Vendedy Travellers to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Vendedy Travellers to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Vendedy Travellers is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High brand equity
– Vendedy Travellers has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Vendedy Travellers to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Vendedy Travellers 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.
Learning organization
- Vendedy Travellers 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 Vendedy Travellers is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Vendedy Travellers has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Vendedy Travellers 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.
Organizational Resilience of Vendedy Travellers
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Vendedy Travellers does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Vendedy Travellers 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket 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 Vendedy Travellers 's lucrative customers.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Vendedy Travellers has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket 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 Vendedy Travellers has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Vendedy Travellers 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. Vendedy Travellers 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Vendedy Travellers 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 - Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Vendedy Travellers, firm in the HBR case study Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket, 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket, in the dynamic environment Vendedy Travellers has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Vendedy Travellers has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket HBR case study mentions - Vendedy Travellers 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.
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 Vendedy Travellers supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Vendedy Travellers vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Opportunities Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket | 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 Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Vendedy Travellers can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Vendedy Travellers operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Vendedy Travellers has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Vendedy Travellers to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket case study. Vendedy Travellers can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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 Vendedy Travellers in the consumer business. Now Vendedy Travellers can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Vendedy Travellers 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Vendedy Travellers can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Vendedy Travellers can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Vendedy Travellers 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Vendedy Travellers 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 Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Vendedy Travellers to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Vendedy Travellers 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 Vendedy Travellers to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Vendedy Travellers 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Vendedy Travellers 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.
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 Vendedy Travellers 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Vendedy Travellers to increase its market reach. Vendedy Travellers 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.
Threats Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Vendedy Travellers 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.
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 Vendedy Travellers business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Vendedy Travellers is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Vendedy Travellers with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Vendedy Travellers 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Vendedy Travellers 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket, Vendedy Travellers 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 .
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.
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. Vendedy Travellers can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Vendedy Travellers 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. Vendedy Travellers can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
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. Vendedy Travellers needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Vendedy Travellers
– 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 Vendedy Travellers.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket 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 Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket 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 Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket 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 Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket 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 Vendedy: The World's Street Markets in Your Pocket 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 Vendedy Travellers needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.