Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution

Case Study Description of Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A)

Focuses on the introduction, implementation, and initial evaluation of Cisco Systems Community Fellowship Program. This program provided Cisco employees affected by the layoff the option of working with a nonprofit organization for one year. Instead of a severance package, the employee received one-third of his or her salary and retained all benefits and stock options. Includes the perspectives of the program's manager, several fellows, and the leadership of a nonprofit organization participating in the program.

Authors :: Diana Barrett, Sheila McCarthy

Topics :: Organizational Development

Tags :: Downsizing, Human resource management, IT, Operations management, Social enterprise, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis

Swot Analysis of "Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A)" written by Diana Barrett, Sheila McCarthy includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Cisco Fellowship facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Downsizing, Human resource management, IT, Operations management, Social enterprise and Organizational Development.

Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A)

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cisco Fellowship, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cisco Fellowship 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cisco Fellowship
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Organizational Development field.
4. Making a Organizational Development topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Cisco Fellowship

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Strengths Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Cisco Fellowship in Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Cisco Fellowship 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.

Learning organization

- Cisco Fellowship is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Cisco Fellowship is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Strong track record of project management

– Cisco Fellowship is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Cisco Fellowship in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Organizational Resilience of Cisco Fellowship

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Cisco Fellowship does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Cisco Fellowship are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Cisco Fellowship has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Cisco Fellowship has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.

Diverse revenue streams

– Cisco Fellowship is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Cisco Fellowship 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 Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Cisco Fellowship 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 Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (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.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy in the Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (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.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Cisco Fellowship in the sector have low bargaining power. Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Cisco Fellowship to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

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Weaknesses Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) are -

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A), is just above the industry average. Cisco Fellowship needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.

Skills based hiring

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Cisco Fellowship has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Cisco Fellowship is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Aligning sales with marketing

– It come across in the case study Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Cisco Fellowship is planning to shift buying processes online.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Cisco Fellowship 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.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Cisco Fellowship 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. Cisco Fellowship 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.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) HBR case study mentions - Cisco Fellowship 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.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Cisco Fellowship has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Cisco Fellowship 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.

High dependence on star products

– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (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 Cisco Fellowship has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Need for greater diversity

– Cisco Fellowship 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.

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Opportunities Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (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 Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) are -

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Cisco Fellowship 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Cisco Fellowship has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Cisco Fellowship to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) case study. Cisco Fellowship can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Cisco Fellowship can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Cisco Fellowship in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Organizational Development segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Manufacturing automation

– Cisco Fellowship can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Organizational Development 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Cisco Fellowship to increase its market reach. Cisco Fellowship will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Cisco Fellowship in the consumer business. Now Cisco Fellowship can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Cisco Fellowship is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (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.

Developing new processes and practices

– Cisco Fellowship can develop new processes and procedures in Organizational Development 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.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Organizational Development industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Cisco Fellowship can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Buying journey improvements

– Cisco Fellowship can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Cisco Fellowship can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Cisco Fellowship operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Cisco Fellowship 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 Organizational Development segment.

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Threats Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A) are -

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (A), Cisco Fellowship may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Organizational Development .

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Cisco Fellowship is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Regulatory challenges

– Cisco Fellowship 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 Organizational Development industry regulations.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Cisco Fellowship with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.

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 Cisco Fellowship in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Cisco Fellowship has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Cisco Fellowship needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Organizational Development 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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Cisco Fellowship 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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Cisco Fellowship demand

– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.

Environmental challenges

– Cisco Fellowship needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Cisco Fellowship can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.

Increasing wage structure of Cisco Fellowship

– 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 Cisco Fellowship.

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.

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.

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. Cisco Fellowship needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (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 Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (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 Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (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 Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (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 Cisco Systems and Its Community Fellowship Program (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 Cisco Fellowship needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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