Coca-Cola: Back in Burma SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Coca-Cola: Back in Burma
Coca-Cola has announced the opening of its first bottling plant in Burma in almost 60 years. Since 1962, Burma has been a closed and isolated country and under military rule. As a result of the military's steady relinquishing of control over the government, Burma has begun opening its doors to international trade and investment. However, political instability is still very high and economic development is far from secure. Furthermore, although a framework agreement between the U.S. and Burmese governments has been signed, a bilateral investment treaty to provide protection for Coca-Cola's direct investment is not yet in place. How should Coca-Cola pursue its strategy in Burma?
Authors :: Tatiana Lukoianova, Christopher Williams, Carolyn Burns
Swot Analysis of "Coca-Cola: Back in Burma" written by Tatiana Lukoianova, Christopher Williams, Carolyn Burns includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Burma Coca facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Coca-Cola: Back in Burma case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Strategy and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Coca-Cola: Back in Burma casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption,
wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Coca-Cola: Back in Burma
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Coca-Cola: Back in Burma case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Burma Coca, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Burma Coca 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: Back in Burma can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Coca-Cola: Back in Burma case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Burma Coca
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 Burma Coca
Strengths Coca-Cola: Back in Burma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Burma Coca in Coca-Cola: Back in Burma Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Burma Coca has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Burma Coca 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Burma Coca is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Coca-Cola: Back in Burma Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Coca-Cola: Back in Burma 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Burma Coca 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 Coca-Cola: Back in Burma - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management
– Burma Coca 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 switching costs
– The high switching costs that Burma Coca 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 Burma Coca in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Burma Coca is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Coca-Cola: Back in Burma are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Burma Coca 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 Burma Coca in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Burma Coca is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Coca-Cola: Back in Burma 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Burma Coca 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
– Burma Coca 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: Back in Burma HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Coca-Cola: Back in Burma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Coca-Cola: Back in Burma are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Burma Coca 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 - Coca-Cola: Back in Burma should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Burma Coca 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Coca-Cola: Back in Burma, is just above the industry average. Burma Coca 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Coca-Cola: Back in Burma HBR case study mentions - Burma Coca 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Burma Coca 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Coca-Cola: Back in Burma 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 Burma Coca 's lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Tatiana Lukoianova, Christopher Williams, Carolyn Burns suggests that, Burma Coca 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Coca-Cola: Back in Burma that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Coca-Cola: Back in Burma can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Burma Coca is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Burma Coca is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Burma Coca needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Burma Coca to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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 Burma Coca supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Coca-Cola: Back in Burma, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Burma Coca vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Burma Coca 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. Burma Coca 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.
Opportunities Coca-Cola: Back in Burma | 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: Back in Burma are -
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 Burma Coca 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Burma Coca has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Burma Coca to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Coca-Cola: Back in Burma case study. Burma Coca can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Burma Coca 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Burma Coca 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 Burma Coca to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Burma Coca 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Burma Coca 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Burma Coca 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.
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. Burma Coca 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. Burma Coca 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.
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 Burma Coca in the consumer business. Now Burma Coca can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Burma Coca 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Burma Coca 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Burma Coca is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Coca-Cola: Back in Burma 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Burma Coca 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, Coca-Cola: Back in Burma, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Coca-Cola: Back in Burma 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: Back in Burma are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Burma Coca is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Burma Coca has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Burma Coca 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Burma Coca 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 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Coca-Cola: Back in Burma, Burma Coca 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 .
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. Burma Coca 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
– Burma Coca 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. Burma Coca can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Burma Coca 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. Burma Coca needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Burma Coca.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Burma Coca 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Burma Coca with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Coca-Cola: Back in Burma 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: Back in Burma 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: Back in Burma 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: Back in Burma 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: Back in Burma 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 Burma Coca needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
