Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution

Case Study Description of Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B)

Southwest Creations Collaborative (SCC) was a non-profit social enterprise dedicated to promoting the employability and financial independence of poor immigrant women in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It sought to accomplish its mission by providing part-time and later full-time sewing and handwork jobs in a contract manufacturing business. SCC also provided many social program activities for employees, including onsite childcare, English lessons, health education, and computer classes. The organization's financial support came from a combination of contract work and grant funding. The two cases stretch through the life of SCC, from its inception in 1994 through the middle of 2008. Case (A) covers the initial formation of the organization in 1994, from the perspective of the founder and executive director, and leads to a decision point regarding a possible relationship with a social venture consulting group in 2005. Case (B) begins where Case (A) ends and concludes with decisions in 2008 about whether or not to expand the business in order to become more economically self-sufficient and less reliant on grants and donations, and whether to increase its impact by marketing its approach to employee social programs to local companies and other organizations.

Authors :: Jeanne M. Logsdon, Jonathan N. Bundy

Topics :: Organizational Development

Tags :: Gender, Social enterprise, Social responsibility, Venture capital, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis

Swot Analysis of "Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B)" written by Jeanne M. Logsdon, Jonathan N. Bundy includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Scc Creations facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Gender, Social enterprise, Social responsibility, Venture capital and Organizational Development.

Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) casestudy better are - – wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B)

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Scc Creations, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Scc Creations 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 Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Scc Creations
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 Scc Creations

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Strengths Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Scc Creations in Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -

Ability to recruit top talent

– Scc Creations is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field

– Scc Creations is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Scc Creations in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

High brand equity

– Scc Creations has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Scc Creations to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Scc Creations in the sector have low bargaining power. Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Scc Creations to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Scc Creations 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Scc Creations is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) 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

– Scc Creations 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 Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Analytics focus

– Scc Creations is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Jeanne M. Logsdon, Jonathan N. Bundy can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.

Digital Transformation in Organizational Development segment

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Scc Creations digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Scc Creations has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy in the Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) 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.

Innovation driven organization

– Scc Creations is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.

Strong track record of project management

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

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Weaknesses Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) are -

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Scc Creations 's lucrative customers.

High bargaining power of channel partners

– Because of the regulatory requirements, Jeanne M. Logsdon, Jonathan N. Bundy suggests that, Scc Creations is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B), is just above the industry average. Scc Creations 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.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Scc Creations 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 - Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy

– From the instances in the HBR case study Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B), it seems that the employees of Scc Creations don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.

Need for greater diversity

– Scc Creations 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Scc Creations, firm in the HBR case study Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Scc Creations 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. Scc Creations 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 Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) HBR case study mentions - Scc Creations 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.

High dependence on star products

– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) 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 Scc Creations has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Scc Creations is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

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Opportunities Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) | 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 Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) are -

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. Scc Creations can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Increase in government spending

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

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Scc Creations to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Scc Creations to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Scc Creations 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

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

Developing new processes and practices

– Scc Creations 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Scc Creations to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.

Reconfiguring business model

– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Scc Creations to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Scc Creations has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Scc Creations to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) case study. Scc Creations can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Scc Creations is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Scc Creations has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Scc Creations 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Scc Creations to increase its market reach. Scc Creations 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.

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Threats Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) are -

Increasing wage structure of Scc Creations

– 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 Scc Creations.

Backlash against dominant players

– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Scc Creations business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Scc Creations 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.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Scc Creations has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Scc Creations 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.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B), Scc Creations 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 .

Regulatory challenges

– Scc Creations 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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Scc Creations 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.

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

Shortening product life cycle

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

Barriers of entry lowering

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

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.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Scc Creations in the Organizational Development industry. The Organizational Development industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.

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 Scc Creations in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) 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 Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) 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 Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) 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 Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) 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 Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative (B) 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 Scc Creations needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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