T.1 SWOT analysis questions for IB Business Management

Areco Leather

[1] Curtiembre Areco SA (Areco Leather) is a family-owned company in Buenos Aires province, Argentina. It tans cattle hides and makes belts, bags and saddles, which it sells through 30 shops across Argentina. It employs 180 people, many of them craftspeople trained over decades.

[2] Argentina’s economy has been unstable: inflation was above 100 % in 2023 and 2024, and the peso lost much of its value. Domestic sales of Areco’s products have fallen by a third since 2022. However, the weak peso has made Argentine leather cheaper for foreign buyers, and a fashion house in Milan has asked Areco to supply 5 000 handbags a year.

[3] Areco’s managing director, Lucía Fernández, has proposed a new strategic objective: “to earn 50 % of our revenue from exports by 2030”. Areco has no export experience, and its website is only in Spanish. Its leather has a strong reputation for quality in Argentina.

[4] Tanneries use large amounts of water and chemicals. New European Union rules will require importers to show that leather is not linked to deforestation. Areco buys hides from many small ranches, some of them in the Chaco region, where forest is being cleared for cattle.

Matangi Brewing (MB)

[1] Matangi Brewing (MB) is a craft brewery near Hamilton, New Zealand. It brews 12 beers in small batches, changing its equipment between beers several times a week. MB’s beers are sold in bars and supermarkets across the North Island. Its Hazy Lager now accounts for most of its sales volume, and two supermarket chains want to stock it nationwide.

[2] MB’s head brewer, Hine Tipoki, says “our variety is our brand”, but the finance director, Ben Walsh, proposes buying a dedicated automated line to produce Hazy Lager continuously using flow production. The other 11 beers would still be made in batches. Information is shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Information on MB’s production

Paso Común (PC)

Read the resources and answer the questions that follow.

Paso Común (PC) is a social enterprise in Medellín, Colombia. It was founded in 2017 by Mariela Ospina, a former social worker, as a non-profit foundation. PC makes canvas shoes with soles cut from recycled tyres in a workshop where former members of armed groups, who have completed the government’s reintegration programme, work side by side with people whose families were victims of the armed conflict. PC’s mission is “to rebuild trust one step at a time”. It sells its shoes in its own shop, online and at craft fairs.

Image: a pair of PC’s canvas shoes in deep green, with a black sole made from a recycled tyre. Two hands, one older and one younger, are tying the laces together. Printed on the shoe box: “Paso Común – two stories, one step”.

Resource 1 – News article from *Medellín Hoy*

The workshop where former enemies make shoes together – but can it grow without losing its soul?

Eight years ago, few people believed that former fighters and conflict victims could share a workbench. Today PC employs 34 people and its shoes are worn by two city councillors and a famous salsa singer. Yet the foundation reported its first deficit in 2025. Donations from international peace-building programmes are falling as donors move their attention to other parts of the world.

Table 1: Selected information for PC, 2022–2025

COP m = millions of Colombian pesos. USD 1 ≈ COP 4 000.

Resource 2 – Social media posts from Yeison, a PC employee

Seven years ago I came down from the mountains with nothing. PC gave me a trade, a salary and people who now call me brother – including Doña Rosa, whose son was killed in the war. That is what these shoes mean. [1/2]

Now there is talk of investors and big shops. We were told PC belongs to all of us. If strangers buy it, will we still have a voice, or will we just be machines that make shoes faster? #PasoComún [2/2]

Resource 3 – Internal email from Mariela Ospina to PC’s board of trustees

From: Mariela Ospina, Director

To: Board of trustees

Subject: The Calzado Andino offer and how we pay for it

Calzado Andino, a national footwear retailer with 140 stores, has offered PC a three-year contract for 2 000 pairs a month. The shoes would be sold under Calzado Andino’s own brand, not ours, and it would pay 60 days after delivery. To meet the order we need a second workshop and new cutting machines costing about COP 960 million.

As a foundation we cannot sell shares, and the bank will only lend the full amount at 14 % a year, secured on our building. Fondo Semilla Andina, an impact investor, would invest COP 700 million for 30 % of the shares if we become an S.A.S. BIC*, and would want one seat on a five-person board. Some staff have asked whether we could become a worker co-operative instead.

Please read the lawyer’s summary (attached) before our meeting on Friday. We must answer Calzado Andino within six weeks.

CONFIDENTIAL: this email and any attachments are intended only for the named recipients.

* S.A.S. BIC: a Colombian private limited company that registers a social and environmental purpose and must report every year on its social impact.

Resource 4 – Lawyer’s summary of three legal forms for PC

Resource 5 – Results of a staff survey (30 of 34 employees replied)

Resource 6 – Cost and price information for the Calzado Andino contract

Sabor Andino

[1] Lucía Quispe worked for nine years as a chef in a large hotel in Arequipa, Peru. In 2024 she left her job and bought a second-hand food truck for PEN 45 000, using her savings and a loan from her brother. Her business, Sabor Andino, sells Andean street food with a modern twist, such as quinoa burgers and stuffed rocoto wraps, to students outside a large university.

[2] Lucía had noticed that the cafés near the campus sold mostly expensive sandwiches and that many students skipped lunch. A food truck cost far less than renting a restaurant, and she could move it to markets and festivals at the weekend. After years of working long shifts for someone else, she wanted to decide her own menu and hours.

[3] The first year has been harder than expected. Getting a municipal street-trading permit took four months, during which Lucía earned nothing. The prices of cooking oil and vegetables have risen, and she cannot easily raise her prices because students are price-sensitive. Sales fall sharply during the university holidays. Two established cafés have started offering a cheaper “student lunch”.

[4] Lucía has 3 400 followers on social media, where she posts the truck’s location each day. The city council has announced a new “Healthy Arequipa” programme that will include a monthly street-food festival.

Ludothek Spiele AG (LS)

[1] Ludothek Spiele AG (LS) is a board-game publisher in Bern, Switzerland. Its best-known game, Alpenpass, in which players race to build mountain railways, was launched in 2019 and has won two European game awards. Alpenpass sells for CHF 45 and is available in German and French only. LS has a loyal community of players who post on its online forum, and an in-house team of six game designers.

[2] Sales of Alpenpass are shown in Table 1. Board games became more popular during and after 2020, but competition from new games and from digital games is growing. Rising paper and shipping costs have reduced LS’s margins. A US distributor has offered to sell an English-language edition in North America, and a video-game studio has suggested an app version of Alpenpass.

Table 1: Annual sales of Alpenpass (units)

Salmonberry Point Lodge (SPL)

Read the resources and answer the questions that follow.

Salmonberry Point Lodge (SPL) is a wilderness lodge on the central coast of British Columbia, Canada. It is owned by the economic development corporation of a First Nation of about 900 members, and run as a social enterprise: its surplus is paid into a Nation fund for language and culture programmes, housing and jobs for young people. Guests fly in by floatplane and stay three to five nights between May and October to watch grizzly bears in a river estuary, visit ancient village sites and learn about the Nation’s history from local guides.

Image: a wooden lodge with a carved and painted entrance post stands at the edge of a misty inlet. In the foreground a guide in a red jacket points across the water at a grizzly bear catching salmon. Caption: “Salmonberry Point – see the coast through our eyes”.

Resource 1 – Newspaper article from *Coastal Business Weekly*

Indigenous-owned lodges show that tourism can pay – and protect

Ten years ago the inlet’s main employer was a logging company. Today the Nation’s lodge employs 37 of its own members, most of them under 30, and young guides are learning the Nation’s language so that they can teach it to visitors. “Every dollar a guest spends stays in our community,” says Lena Hunt, chief executive of the development corporation.

Table 1: Selected information for SPL

Resource 2 – Social media posts from Dana, an SPL guide and Nation member

I grew up hearing that our language would die with my grandmother. This summer I guided guests from 14 countries and told them the names of every river in our language. The lodge paid for my lessons. Proud. [1/2]

But last August there were four boats in the estuary at the same time and the bears left the river for two days. Now people are talking about cruise ships. The bears were here before any of us. #ProtectTheInlet [2/2]

Resource 3 – Internal email from SPL’s general manager to the development corporation’s board

From: Mark Feldman, General Manager

To: Lena Hunt and board members

Subject: Two offers we must decide on

Offer 1: Pacific Meridian Cruises wants to stop at the inlet 36 times a season with about 320 passengers each time. It would pay SPL CAD 110 per passenger for a three-hour visit. We would need a new dock costing CAD 1.6 million; the cruise line would lend us half of this, interest-free, repaid from future fees. The lodge cannot take 320 people to the bears, so visits would be to the village, the big house and a salmon barbecue.

Offer 2: Coastal Timberlands will pay the Nation CAD 250 000 a year for ten years for permission to build a logging road across our territory to a valley next to the estuary. It promises not to log within 2 km of the river.

Both would add a lot of income. Both will be controversial. I need the board’s direction before the cruise line’s deadline at the end of next month.

CONFIDENTIAL: this email and any attachments are intended only for the named recipients.

Resource 4 – Extract from a report by a university bear researcher

Grizzly bears feeding in the estuary leave when boats, noise or people come too close. To avoid disturbance, no more than 24 visitors should be at the viewing platform during each tide period, with two periods a day during the 120-day season. Logging roads open forests to hunters and vehicles and have reduced bear numbers in nearby valleys.

Resource 5 – Survey of Nation members (210 replies)

Resource 6 – The general manager’s figures for the cruise offer