Case Study Description of Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A)
By the spring of 2014, the founder of EarthWear Face & Body is in desperate need of part-time employees to help run her successful skin care retail business, which she runs out of her home in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. After eight years of hard work, she has turned her part-time hobby making all-natural skin care products into a thriving business. She sells her products online, through retail stores, at craft and trade shows and at the Saskatoon Farmers' Market. But her successful business has become too much work for her to manage on her own. A failed attempt to bring on a part-time employee made it clear that she needs to develop a targeted recruitment strategy. How can she effectively communicate her corporate culture to attract the best candidates?
Swot Analysis of "Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A)" written by Mary Weil, Julia Cutt includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Earthwear Skin facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Human resource management and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) casestudy better are - – increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Earthwear Skin, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Earthwear Skin operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Earthwear Skin
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Earthwear Skin
Strengths Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Earthwear Skin in Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Earthwear Skin has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Earthwear Skin in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Earthwear Skin is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Earthwear Skin in the sector have low bargaining power. Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Earthwear Skin to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Earthwear Skin to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Earthwear Skin to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Earthwear Skin has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Earthwear Skin is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Earthwear Skin is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Earthwear Skin in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Earthwear Skin digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Earthwear Skin has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Innovation driven organization
– Earthwear Skin is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Earthwear Skin 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.
Weaknesses Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) are -
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Mary Weil, Julia Cutt suggests that, Earthwear Skin is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A), 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Earthwear Skin has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Earthwear Skin has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) HBR case study mentions - Earthwear Skin takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A), it seems that the employees of Earthwear Skin don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Earthwear Skin 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Earthwear Skin products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Earthwear Skin needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Earthwear Skin 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Earthwear Skin 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Earthwear Skin 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. Earthwear Skin 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 Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Earthwear Skin can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Manufacturing automation
– Earthwear Skin can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Earthwear Skin can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Earthwear Skin can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Leadership & Managing People segment.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Leadership & Managing People industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Earthwear Skin can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Earthwear Skin can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Earthwear Skin can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Earthwear Skin to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Earthwear Skin 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 Earthwear Skin to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Earthwear Skin 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, Earthwear Skin is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) 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.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Earthwear Skin can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Earthwear Skin has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Earthwear Skin to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Earthwear Skin can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Threats Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Earthwear Skin can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Earthwear Skin has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Earthwear Skin needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Leadership & Managing People sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
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. Earthwear Skin can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Earthwear Skin.
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. Earthwear Skin needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Earthwear Skin in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Earthwear Skin will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Earthwear Skin in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The Leadership & Managing People industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Increasing wage structure of Earthwear Skin
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Earthwear Skin.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Earthwear Skin 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 Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) .
Regulatory challenges
– Earthwear Skin needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Leadership & Managing People industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Earthwear Face & Body: Communicating Corporate Culture (A) is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Earthwear Skin needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.