The objective of this case is to illustrate forecasting with monthly sales data. It is based on historical data for household goods sales in the United Kingdom from January 1997 to December 2011. Students are challenged to develop a model for this data and to calculate a forecast for 2012 sales based on that model. There is a companion IESE focus case, ADFC-003 "The Jia Wu Expansion," which describes Jia Wu's earlier expansion to Australia. The purpose and the content of the two cases are the same, although the methods used in the present case are more complex. While in the first case, the forecasts were based on a linear trend plus a set of multiplicative seasonals, here we discuss two alternatives: (a) a quadratic trend plus a set of additive seasonals and (b) an additive Holt-Winters model. This case can be used in many ways: (a) in one session, skipping one of the two models discussed in this note; (b) in two sessions, including both models; or (c) combined with the companion case, using one case for the quadratic trend and the other for the Holt-Winters method. Basic knowledge of Excel or an analogous spreadsheet application is required. The calculations are assumed to be performed using standard spreadsheet functions.
Swot Analysis of "Jia Wu Goes West" written by Ines Alegre Tort-Martorell, Miguel Angel Canela Campos, Burcin Guclu includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Jia Seasonals facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Jia Wu Goes West case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Sales and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Jia Wu Goes West casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing energy prices,
technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Jia Wu Goes West case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Jia Seasonals, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Jia Seasonals 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 Jia Wu Goes West can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Jia Wu Goes West case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Jia Seasonals
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 Jia Seasonals
Strengths Jia Wu Goes West | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Jia Seasonals in Jia Wu Goes West Harvard Business Review case study are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Jia Wu Goes West 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 Leadership & Managing People field
– Jia Seasonals 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 Jia Seasonals in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Jia Seasonals has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Jia Seasonals 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Jia Seasonals is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Jia Wu Goes West 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.
High brand equity
– Jia Seasonals has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Jia Seasonals to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Jia Seasonals 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 Jia Wu Goes West HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Jia Seasonals 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 Jia Seasonals is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Jia Wu Goes West Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Jia Seasonals 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Jia Seasonals 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Jia Seasonals is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Jia Wu Goes West Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Organizational Resilience of Jia Seasonals
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Jia Seasonals does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Jia Seasonals has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Jia Wu Goes West 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.
Weaknesses Jia Wu Goes West | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Jia Wu Goes West are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Jia Seasonals has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Jia Seasonals 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 Jia Wu Goes West, is just above the industry average. Jia Seasonals 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Jia Seasonals 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Jia Seasonals is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Jia Seasonals needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Jia Seasonals to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Jia Wu Goes West 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 Jia Wu Goes West can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Jia Seasonals is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Jia Wu Goes West, 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Jia Seasonals is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Jia Wu Goes West can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Jia Seasonals products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Jia Seasonals needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Jia Seasonals 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Jia Seasonals 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. Jia Seasonals 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 Jia Wu Goes West | 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 Jia Wu Goes West are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Jia Seasonals has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Jia Seasonals to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Jia Wu Goes West case study. Jia Seasonals can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Jia Seasonals 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Jia Seasonals can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Jia Seasonals operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Jia Seasonals 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 Jia Seasonals can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Jia Seasonals 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 Jia Seasonals to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Jia Seasonals can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Manufacturing automation
– Jia Seasonals 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Jia Seasonals can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Jia Wu Goes West 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Jia Seasonals 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Jia Seasonals 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
– Jia Seasonals 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 Jia Wu Goes West - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Jia Seasonals to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Jia Seasonals 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 Jia Wu Goes West External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Jia Wu Goes West are -
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.
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 Jia Seasonals.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Jia Seasonals 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Jia Seasonals has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Jia Seasonals 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.
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 Jia Seasonals in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Jia Seasonals 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Jia Seasonals can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Jia Wu Goes West .
Environmental challenges
– Jia Seasonals 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. Jia Seasonals can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Jia Seasonals 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.
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 Jia Seasonals business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Jia Seasonals can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Jia Seasonals
– 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 Jia Seasonals.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Jia Seasonals 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 Jia Wu Goes West 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 Jia Wu Goes West 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 Jia Wu Goes West 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 Jia Wu Goes West 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 Jia Wu Goes West 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 Jia Seasonals needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
