Innovation and design
Strengths
The company offers unique products that are not available for the competition. In the luxury industry, having unique product ensures that customers are able to associate with the brand. Thus, based on the anti-laws of marketing, unique products help to dominate the client. It is a good thing for Harry Winston to communicate to those that it is not targeting. A unique brand or design shows that the brand is not fearful or exploring unconventional ways. This drives its meaning to resemble more of an art than a consumer product and is a good thing for overall brand value.
Branding
Strengths
Harry Winston is a strong brand name that evokes a luxury association because of the effective years of marketing the brand and appropriate production strategies in its management. The brand has not focused on group synergies. It has not sought to have consensus in the luxury industry. Being able to stand alone is a bold branding statement for the company. It aids in reputation building.
Weakness
The showcased products on the website not presented alongside a message to highlight their glamor and exclusivity that would be expected of a luxury brand that is supposed to appeal to hedonistic interests of buyers (Serdari, 2012). The brand appeal is mostly for people who are getting the ability to purchase luxury brands for the first time and do not know the choices available to them. However, for veteran consumers of luxury, Harry Winston fails to create sufficient yearning.
Opportunity
New owners of the company can work on differentiating its two businesses such that the extraction segment does not dilute the luxury brand. Luxury brands face different demand dynamics than conventional goods. The increase in their price leads mainly to an increase in their demand. However, the diamond extraction division of the company deals with a conventional industrial good whose price increase leads to relative slowdown in demand. Therefore, dissociation of the two is important to help the luxury segment of the business grow.
Threats
The approach to marketing is leading to the loss of brand personality for Harry Winston. Most of the luxury market in the developed world is mature, and any bad strategy leads to catastrophic results for a brand. A brand does not communicate by its price when its luxury, but in the manner that it interacts with values and feelings of customers.
Corporate strategy
Weakness
It is difficult to tell a core product of the company, whether they are timepieces or necklaces and rings and so on. Everything is presented with the Harry Winston brand name, without actual differentiation with generic brand names. There is no major item currently attached to the Harry Winston brand.
Opportunity
The company also has a chance to come up with an iconic product or product line that will serve as its main offering. The company can focus on rejuvenating the appeal of the Harry Winston brand with younger and wealthy consumers. By strengthening its high products, after successfully redefining them, it should be able to reinforce the core super-luxury product-segment that was part of its legacy. It will result in an umbrella effect, which will allow the company to tap into new markets, without necessarily having to diffuse its retail strategy for including partnerships (Gassman, 2015).
Threats
The company is proposing to open partner salons that serve as a hybrid distribution model. This model is likely to fail in the luxury business, and the company has an opportunity to reconsider its corporate strategy before it is too late. Luxury brands do not need to have a consensus in the market. A luxury company should not be seen as very eager to set up partnerships that are helping distribute its products without exclusivity. This is a way to make the products very easy to buy for consumer. Unfortunately, being easy to buy does not quality as an anti-law of marketing.
Website/E-commerce
Weakness
The company’s website lacks the allure expected of a luxury jewelry brand like Harry Winston. The site is very clean with logically organized product displays where customers see the menu items as engagements, jewels, and timepieces. There is no communication of the brand value on the website.
Threats
The company also makes a mistake of offering an e-commerce option on its website, making it very easy for customers to make purchases and, therefore, eroding another opportunity to pursue one more anti-law of marketing. The many explanations of the brand and how to get it as well as comparisons with other brands that have been done on the Harry Winston website are destroying the dream value of the luxury brand.
SCM
Strengths
It has expertise in retailing and mining of diamond and is capable of controlling its supply chain because of its interests in both extractions of the raw material and sale of the finished product (Harry Winston, 2015). Being able to control supply chain in any business ensures that a company can deliver quality products to the market. In the luxury business, this means that the delivery of jewelry and other products when demand peaks and when there are an occasion representing such demand is a positive characteristic for competitiveness.
Sustainability
Strengths
The company has luxury timepiece-retail salons in key locations like New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Singapore. Exclusive brand stores are good because they show that the brand is not going cheap with its distribution strategy. Here, the company seems to have got it right that luxury sets the price and not the other way round.
Weakness
Unfortunately, there are too many introductions of designs in the pipeline. They will make it more of a mass-market luxury brand that is easy to topple (Gassman, 2015). Having more designs goes against anti-laws of marketing. The company is not supposed to be volume selling at any time.
Opportunity
The company can cut back on the number of brands. This will enable it to maintain exclusivity for access. It will also give it an impetus to raise prices as overall demand for fewer products will be higher. Therefore, rather than make new introductions on portfolio, it should be cutting back and taking the opportunity to increase prices.
Threats
Harry Winston faces the risk of failing because of being unknown to people and doing a poor job of increasing awareness about it. Its awareness is not improving, and purchases are not improving. Without increase in purchases, the brand will fall behind in its market position. It needs to also improve awareness so that the value of its products goes up. Additional awareness implies that more people will be able to recognize its product. As they do, they compel those capable to buy the luxuries to have additional reasons for doing so, given that a large part of luxury is about showcasing it to the rest of society. This is one of the requirements for improving the value equation of the product.
Internationalization
Weakness
Harry Winston has been relying on wholesale channels for the global growth of its business and is now seeking to have partner salons as a new distribution channel. It also uses exhibitions and e-commerce channels for highlighting its collections and promoting sales across the world (Gassman, 2015).
Opportunity
Instead, the brand ought to stick to its heritage, and any creativeness must be pursued along its tested strategy. A requirement for luxuries is that they should not relocate their factories. The heritage of the company is partly its production area and its founding philosophies and traditions. The company should therefore stick with this, and it will realize better appreciation of its brand in the market.
Threats
As the company’s strategy is to become a global bridal destination and to appeal to a young clientele by introducing creative and innovative designs, there is the risk of making it too obvious to consumers and, therefore, losing appeal to premium brands that offer both value and functionality.
Ethics
Strengths
The company has succeeded to avoid headlines with wrong mentions of its brand. It therefore enjoys substantial goodwill among people in its markets. Cultivating such goodwill is important because luxury brands are prone to ethical accusations by consumers who see them and their consumers as the source of problems of economic and social inequality. The brand should be working hard to sustain this position through good public relations
Weakness
The company has no strategy to respond to ethical claims. Therefore, if any arises, it will be caught off-guard. It might be able to fight it off, but will eventually have to use considerable resources to try and repair its public image. The anti-laws of marketing dictate that the company should be able to protect its consumers against non-consumers. With such strategy, it will be able to do so.
References
Gassman, K. (2015). IDEX online research: Harry Winston retail set for accelerated growth.IDEX. Web.
Harry Winston. (2015). Home. Web.
Serdari, T. (2012). Lessons from Harry Winston.Luxury Daily. Web.