Comprehensive SWOT Analysis of Burberry -Complete Case Study

Burberry, popularly known as a luxurious British fashion house, makes, designs, and distributes ready wear, accessories, perfumes, and is famous for its trench coats. 

The brand has been associated with numerous contributions that have made it the biggest name in luxury ready-to-wear clothes. 

In this case study, we will go through the SWOT Analysis of Burberry in greater detail by digging into its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. So, let us understand Burberry as a company first.

About Burberry

Burberry is a luxury fashion brand that affords personal accessories, footwear, clothing, etc. The clothing line was established in 1856 by Thomas Burberry based in London. The company has come a long way from producing its waterproof fabrics to designing a luxurious, and high-fashion clothing line.

The fashion house sells accessories, apparel, shoes, jewellery, small leather goods, handbags, and even merchandise from other beauty businesses. 

It caters to the upper echelon of society and manufactures, designs, and distributes its products all around the world. The brand’s products satisfy almost all age and gender demographics. 

What’s new about Burberry

Check out some current news about Burberry:

• Burberry named Jonathan Akeroyd as its new chief executive officer.
• Burberry has seen its sales spike in recent months after a post-Covid rebound in shoppers in China.

Target Audience of Burberry

Now that we know about the company, let us go through the SWOT Analysis of Burberry in the coming section. 

SWOT Analysis of Burberry

SWOT analysis is a tool applied to a company to know about its strengths, risks, prospects, and dangers. SWOT analysis is commonly used at the organizational level to determine how closely a company’s growth trajectories and success standards are aligned. 

Let us see how the SWOT Analysis of Burberry has been formulated in the coming section individually.

1. Strengths of Burberry

Strengths are the areas where a company is strong enough to run its business and also to compete with its rivals. A few major strengths of Burberry are mentioned below. 

• Focused Branding: Burberry is promoted only through fashion websites and also within magazines like GQ, Elle, Glamour, Vogue, and a lot more. It relies on celebrity endorsements who helped the brand to gain its reputation after its downfall during 1970-2000. Celebrities such as Kate Moss, Agyness Deyn, Robert Pattinson, and Rosie Huntington-Whitey kept the brand fresh and appealing.
• Reinvented From A Manufacturer To A Lifestyle Brand: The company’s management made prudent selections in investing in both renovating and growing its brand. The corporation started offering trendy fashion clothes along with its regular products. Over the years, the company’s design has become reputable, serving as an icon of fashion, class, tradition, and luxury.
• Gained Royal Warrant Twice: Burberry has received a Royal warrant twice; one from Queen Elizabeth II and another from Prince Charles, which suggests that the corporation can publicize that they’re the supplier of products to the royal family. These historic achievements have added great value to the brand.
• Presence on Social Media: The firm clearly understands that interactive and engaging social media is vital to appear relevant to its target audience. The success of the brand’s social media marketing strategy is evident in the number of fans it has accumulated, the company currently have 14, 241, 285 likes on Facebook, 1,403, 981 followers on Twitter, and has 47, 061 subscribers on Youtube with 17, 769, 628 video views.

Brand image can be increased at an effective level with these strengths of Burberry. Moving further with the SWOT Analysis of Burberry let’s get to know about its weakness. 

2. Weaknesses of Burberry

Weaknesses are the negative aspects of a company which is the sole purpose of ruining the brand. This factor makes the brand lose its competition. The organization needs to improve its weaknesses to maintain its business. 

Let’s find out what are the weaknesses of Burberry in the below section. 

• High Price Range: Though pricing suggests quality and desirability, the high price range has made it reachable within the pocket of a few customers only. The younger generation who yearns for fashionable and luxurious lifestyles can’t afford high-priced products.
• Asian Markets: A huge proportion of the group’s sales come from Asian consumers globally. Consequently, any change to consumer tastes or economic, regulatory, or social and political environment in Asia could adversely impact Asian consumer’s life. A substantial proportion of group profits rely upon its licensed business in Japan and other key licensed products.

This concludes the part about weaknesses. So now let us learn how Burberry grasps its opportunities to tackle its weaknesses. 

3. Opportunities of Burberry

Opportunities are the external factors that have a positive impact on the company. Here, the opportunities of Burberry help it to increase its productivity. Let’s have a check on it. 

• Collaborations: Burberry can try to make clothes affordable by collaborating with other brands. The company can reach out to more clients if they use e-commerce effectively.
• Developing Emerging Markets: Expanding into new potential markets like Thailand, Turkey, Mongolia, Egypt, and many other potential countries will be a way to succeed in the future because developed economies are already having high competition. EMEIA (Europe, Middle East, India, and Africa) and the Asia Pacific have a growth rate is 17-18% (2014) only. Penetrating in these markets can increase the brand’s revenue.
• Expanding The Product Line: Extending its product line will open a new set of opportunities while at the same time, it can differentiate itself from the competitors.

Using these opportunities can help Burberry can help to improve itself from its competitors to a higher level. Now, let’s peek into the last segment of the SWOT Analysis of Burberry – threats of Burberry. 

4. Threats of Burberry

Threats are also external factors that harmfully affect the company to the core. The firm needs to be aware of its condition to fight against its risks. 

Let’s have a look at the major Threats faced by Burberry. 

• Extreme Competition: Intense competition from other players like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Prada having a worldwide presence poses a serious threat to the existence of Burberry. But all sectors have competition, so the company needs to launch its new and fresh product portfolio frequently.
• Change In Customer Lifestyle: Continuous change in trends and lifestyle panics the company because the brand needs to produce and design a new set of fashionable products. As far as this industry is concerned, as Fad items have the shortest life cycle, the fashion house should maintain its position by manufacturing new apparel often.
• Threats From Imitation And Fake Products: One of the major issues faced by a popular brand is counterfeit products which can affect the brand equity over some time. Trademarks and Intellectual Property (IP) rights are fundamentally important to the group’s reputation, success, and competitive position. Using these illegally will become a drawback for Burberry.

Before we conclude the SWOT Analysis of Burberry. Let us have a look at the competitors of Burberry.

Top 5 Competitors of Burberry

• Gucci: It is an Italian luxury fashion house based in Florence, Italy. Its product lines include handbags, ready-to-wear, footwear, accessories, and home decoration; and it licenses its name and branding to Coty for fragrance and cosmetics under the name Gucci Beauty.

• Prada: Prada S.p.A. is an Italian luxury fashion house founded in 1913 in Milan by Mario Prada. It specializes in leather handbags, travel accessories, shoes, ready-to-wear, and other fashion accessories. Prada licenses its name and branding to Luxottica for eyewear and L’Oréal for fragrances.

• Michael Kors: Michael Kors, L.L.C. designs and retails apparel and accessories. The Company offers dresses, tops, jeans, skirts, outerwear, bags, wallets, footwear, watches, jewelry, scarves, lingerie products, belts, and shorts for men and women. Michael Kors serves customers worldwide.

• Capri holdings: Capri Holdings Limited is a multinational fashion holding company, incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, with executive offices in London and operational offices in New York. It was founded in 1981 by American designer Michael Kors. The company sells clothes, shoes, watches, handbags, and other accessories.

• Kering: Kering is a French-based multinational corporation specializing in luxury goods. It owns the brands Gucci, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Yves Saint Laurent, Creed, Puma and Alexander McQueen. The timber-trading company Pinault S.A. was founded in 1962, by François Pinault.

Now that we’ve explored the SWOT Analysis of Burberry thoroughly, let’s wrap up this case study in the conclusion. 

Conclusion

Burberry is one of the most distinguished fashion brands in the world. Since its inception, the company has been a prominent name among fashion critics and buyers, setting its niche really into the high-end customer.  

However, in this rapidly digitizing world, the company has been doing its best to adapt to better changes with time passing. After being in the headlines recently for setting up digital stores to incorporating creativity with artificial intelligence, Burberry has all bases set in the right places.

I hope that you liked this case study. Are you interested in learning further? Do check our website if you want to learn about the Digital Marketing Strategy of Burberry.

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