Sales forecasting is needed for planning. This case describes a situation in which monthly sales forecasts can be produced using very elementary methods. The case may be used as an introduction to this topic. Ideally, it should be followed by other cases in which more advanced methods should be employed. The objective of the case is to illustrate a simple forecasting method for monthly sales data. The data set, supplied in an Excel file (jiawu-aus-data.xls), contains the total sales of household goods in Australia, covering the period from January 1995 to December 2009. Students are expected to produce a monthly forecast for 2010, based on a trend and a collection of seasonal effects. Basic knowledge of Excel or an analogous open source spreadsheet application is required. It is assumed that the calculations will be performed using standard spreadsheet functions.
Authors :: Ines Alegre Tort-Martorell, Miguel Angel Canela Campos
Swot Analysis of "The Jia Wu Expansion" written by Ines Alegre Tort-Martorell, Miguel Angel Canela Campos includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Monthly Spreadsheet facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The Jia Wu Expansion case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Sales and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The Jia Wu Expansion casestudy better are - – wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The Jia Wu Expansion
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The Jia Wu Expansion case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Monthly Spreadsheet, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Monthly Spreadsheet 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 The Jia Wu Expansion can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The Jia Wu Expansion case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Monthly Spreadsheet
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 Monthly Spreadsheet
Strengths The Jia Wu Expansion | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Monthly Spreadsheet in The Jia Wu Expansion Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Monthly Spreadsheet
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Monthly Spreadsheet does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Monthly Spreadsheet has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Monthly Spreadsheet 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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Monthly Spreadsheet 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 Monthly Spreadsheet in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Monthly Spreadsheet 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 Monthly Spreadsheet is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in The Jia Wu Expansion Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Monthly Spreadsheet in the sector have low bargaining power. The Jia Wu Expansion has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Monthly Spreadsheet to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Monthly Spreadsheet 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.
High brand equity
– Monthly Spreadsheet has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Monthly Spreadsheet to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Monthly Spreadsheet 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 The Jia Wu Expansion HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Monthly Spreadsheet in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Monthly Spreadsheet is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in The Jia Wu Expansion 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Monthly Spreadsheet is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in The Jia Wu Expansion Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Monthly Spreadsheet 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 The Jia Wu Expansion - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses The Jia Wu Expansion | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The Jia Wu Expansion are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Monthly Spreadsheet 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 - The Jia Wu Expansion should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Monthly Spreadsheet products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Monthly Spreadsheet needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study The Jia Wu Expansion, it seems that the employees of Monthly Spreadsheet 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Monthly Spreadsheet has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Monthly Spreadsheet 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the The Jia Wu Expansion 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 Monthly Spreadsheet has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Monthly Spreadsheet 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Monthly Spreadsheet 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Monthly Spreadsheet 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Ines Alegre Tort-Martorell, Miguel Angel Canela Campos suggests that, Monthly Spreadsheet 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Monthly Spreadsheet 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. Monthly Spreadsheet 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 The Jia Wu Expansion | 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 The Jia Wu Expansion are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Monthly Spreadsheet 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Monthly Spreadsheet is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. The Jia Wu Expansion 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Monthly Spreadsheet 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Monthly Spreadsheet 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 The Jia Wu Expansion - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Monthly Spreadsheet 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 Monthly Spreadsheet 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 Monthly Spreadsheet to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Monthly Spreadsheet 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.
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. Monthly Spreadsheet can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Monthly Spreadsheet can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Monthly Spreadsheet can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. The Jia Wu Expansion 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Monthly Spreadsheet 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, Monthly Spreadsheet can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Monthly Spreadsheet operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Monthly Spreadsheet to increase its market reach. Monthly Spreadsheet 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Monthly Spreadsheet 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.
Threats The Jia Wu Expansion External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The Jia Wu Expansion are -
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. Monthly Spreadsheet 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 Monthly Spreadsheet
– 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 Monthly Spreadsheet.
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. Monthly Spreadsheet 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.
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 Monthly Spreadsheet.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Monthly Spreadsheet has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Monthly Spreadsheet 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.
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 Monthly Spreadsheet business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Monthly Spreadsheet 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Monthly Spreadsheet 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Monthly Spreadsheet 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.
Environmental challenges
– Monthly Spreadsheet 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. Monthly Spreadsheet can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
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 Monthly Spreadsheet in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Monthly Spreadsheet needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Monthly Spreadsheet 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 The Jia Wu Expansion 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 The Jia Wu Expansion 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 The Jia Wu Expansion 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 The Jia Wu Expansion 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 The Jia Wu Expansion 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 Monthly Spreadsheet needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.