The University Store: Textbook Travails SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Finance & Accounting
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of The University Store: Textbook Travails
The University Store, a university auxiliary running bookstore operations, was contemplating an overvalued inventory at year-end. The overvaluation was largely a result of changes in the textbook industry, including more frequent text revision cycles and increased competition from internet sellers and e-books, as well as traditional competitors. The immediate issues were to account for the valuation loss on inventory of non-returnable, obsolete books and to value the remaining retail inventory for reporting purposes. Since the non-profit employed generally accepted accounting principles, it was required to report its inventory accordingly, valuing inventory at lower of cost or market. Of long-term concern to the management of the Store was the need to manage the risk of inventory obsolescence. Managers needed to assess the weaknesses in inventory management processes and develop control procedures minimizing future inventory obsolescence.
Swot Analysis of "The University Store: Textbook Travails" written by Elizabeth V Grace includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Inventory Obsolescence facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The University Store: Textbook Travails case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Operations management and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The University Store: Textbook Travails casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The University Store: Textbook Travails
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The University Store: Textbook Travails case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Inventory Obsolescence, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Inventory Obsolescence 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.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of The University Store: Textbook Travails can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The University Store: Textbook Travails case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Inventory Obsolescence
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Finance & Accounting field.
4. Making a Finance & Accounting topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Inventory Obsolescence
Strengths The University Store: Textbook Travails | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Inventory Obsolescence in The University Store: Textbook Travails Harvard Business Review case study are -
Learning organization
- Inventory Obsolescence 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 Inventory Obsolescence is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in The University Store: Textbook Travails Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Inventory Obsolescence has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in The University Store: Textbook Travails Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Strong track record of project management
– Inventory Obsolescence is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Inventory Obsolescence 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 The University Store: Textbook Travails - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Inventory Obsolescence
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Inventory Obsolescence does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Inventory Obsolescence is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the The University Store: Textbook Travails are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Inventory Obsolescence 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 The University Store: Textbook Travails HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Inventory Obsolescence 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the The University Store: Textbook Travails 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Inventory Obsolescence has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Inventory Obsolescence 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.
Analytics focus
– Inventory Obsolescence 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 Elizabeth V Grace 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.
High brand equity
– Inventory Obsolescence has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Inventory Obsolescence to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses The University Store: Textbook Travails | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The University Store: Textbook Travails are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study The University Store: Textbook Travails, it seems that the employees of Inventory Obsolescence 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Inventory Obsolescence has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the The University Store: Textbook Travails 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 Inventory Obsolescence has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Inventory Obsolescence 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 strategic competitive environment developments
– As The University Store: Textbook Travails HBR case study mentions - Inventory Obsolescence 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study The University Store: Textbook Travails 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 The University Store: Textbook Travails can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Inventory Obsolescence is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Inventory Obsolescence 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.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Inventory Obsolescence supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - The University Store: Textbook Travails, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Inventory Obsolescence vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Inventory Obsolescence, firm in the HBR case study The University Store: Textbook Travails needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Inventory Obsolescence is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study The University Store: Textbook Travails can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study The University Store: Textbook Travails, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Finance & Accounting strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Opportunities The University Store: Textbook Travails | 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 The University Store: Textbook Travails are -
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Inventory Obsolescence can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Finance & Accounting industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Inventory Obsolescence can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Inventory Obsolescence can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Inventory Obsolescence has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study The University Store: Textbook Travails - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Inventory Obsolescence to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Inventory Obsolescence can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Inventory Obsolescence 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 Finance & Accounting segment.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Inventory Obsolescence can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, The University Store: Textbook Travails, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Inventory Obsolescence can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
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 Inventory Obsolescence 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Inventory Obsolescence in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Finance & Accounting segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Inventory Obsolescence can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Finance & Accounting 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Inventory Obsolescence is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. The University Store: Textbook Travails 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Finance & Accounting industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Inventory Obsolescence can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Inventory Obsolescence 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.
Threats The University Store: Textbook Travails External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The University Store: Textbook Travails are -
Regulatory challenges
– Inventory Obsolescence 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 Finance & Accounting industry regulations.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Inventory Obsolescence 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.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Inventory Obsolescence.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study The University Store: Textbook Travails, Inventory Obsolescence may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Finance & Accounting .
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 Inventory Obsolescence in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline 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.
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 Inventory Obsolescence business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Inventory Obsolescence will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Increasing wage structure of Inventory Obsolescence
– 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 Inventory Obsolescence.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Inventory Obsolescence 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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Inventory Obsolescence high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Inventory Obsolescence 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The University Store: Textbook Travails 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 The University Store: Textbook Travails 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 The University Store: Textbook Travails 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 The University Store: Textbook Travails 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 The University Store: Textbook Travails 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 Inventory Obsolescence needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
