The Better World Case Analysis

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- Partnerships

- Relationships with customers

- Sustainable strategy to the environment

- No shipping cost

- Good source of inventories

- Social power (goodwill) from work that focused on literacy and education

- Perform a SWOT analysis for BWB.

Internal strength (S): I think there are two strengths that BWB have. One is that BWB is a well-recognized social firm that not only for profits but also for improvement of literacy and education from the source of used books. Another strength is a good relationship with libraries to extend inventories and with customers. Both two strengths have helped company to gain competitive advantage.

Weakness (W): The two weakness of BWB. One is that BWB pays all the shipping cost so that it have to find a way to reduce cost, and BWB doesn’t always have lowest price so it have to work harder to maintain their relationship with customers. Another one is BWB is a for profit company, some critics criticize them overstate the revenue that BWB allocate to the charitable organizations.

Opportunities (O): BWB are currently keeping good connections with college students, partnering with other firm like Alibri and creating more job opportunities to society. At least it could increase the brand awareness and build good reputation; lastly it will build on their brand loyalty.

Threats (T): Although BWB is a successful company, it is facing many threats. First one is the threat from technological development. It has to attract more e-book readers, because customers are going to use e-book, which is cheaper. Second, BWB have to compete with price of used book from some new companies, which list the same used book in their websites with lower price. Finally, BWB has to compete with new companies with their unique value that BWB is a socially and environmentally responsible used-book company.

- How should BWB differentiate its product and services to create a competitive advantage?

Firstly, BWB can added a rent book model of their website to provide more e-book to their customers. Secondly, BWB can think about expand overseas to increase the width of their customer base, because BWB’s high cost put it in competitive disadvantage of price. Last but not least, the most important competitive advantage that BWB has right now is that people perceive BWB as a sustainable firm with social and environmental responsibility. In order to keep their market shares, BWB has to put more capitals to promote literacy and education all over the world, so that it will increase brand awareness and build on brand royalty.