ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time
ACCION International has been a major innovator in microfinance for 30 years. Reviews organizational context under which key industry-shaping concepts were developed (from peer group lending, guarantee funds, equity investment funds, and regulated commercial banking institutions to joint ventures with banks) and assesses future challenges.
Swot Analysis of "ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time" written by Michael Chu includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Accion Funds facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Organizational structure, Social enterprise and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time casestudy better are - – technology disruption, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Accion Funds, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Accion Funds 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 ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Accion Funds
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 Accion Funds
Strengths ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Accion Funds in ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Accion Funds in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Accion Funds 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.
Learning organization
- Accion Funds 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 Accion Funds is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Accion Funds 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 Michael Chu 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 Accion Funds digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Accion Funds 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.
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Accion Funds 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 Accion Funds in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Accion Funds is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time 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
– Accion Funds 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 ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management
– Accion Funds 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)
– Accion Funds 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 ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Accion Funds is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Accion Funds in the sector have low bargaining power. ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Accion Funds to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time 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 Accion Funds 's lucrative customers.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time 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 Accion Funds has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time, is just above the industry average. Accion Funds 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time 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 ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Accion Funds is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Accion Funds is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Organizational Development segment. Accion Funds needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Accion Funds to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Accion Funds 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 - ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Need for greater diversity
– Accion Funds 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Accion Funds 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time HBR case study mentions - Accion Funds 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Organizational Development 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Accion Funds is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Opportunities ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time | 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 ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Accion Funds 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Accion Funds 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Accion Funds 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Accion Funds 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 Accion Funds to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Accion Funds 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 ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Accion Funds to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Accion Funds 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.
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. Accion Funds can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Accion Funds can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Accion Funds operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Manufacturing automation
– Accion Funds 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Accion Funds 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Organizational Development industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Accion Funds 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. Accion Funds 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Accion Funds 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Accion Funds to increase its market reach. Accion Funds 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.
Threats ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time are -
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 Accion Funds.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Accion Funds 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.
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 Accion Funds business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time, Accion Funds 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 .
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. Accion Funds needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Accion Funds can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time .
Regulatory challenges
– Accion Funds 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Accion Funds has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Accion Funds 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Accion Funds 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Accion Funds 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Organizational Development field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Accion Funds can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Accion Funds 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Accion Funds with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time 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 ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time 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 ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time 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 ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time 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 ACCION International: Maintaining High Performance Through Time 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 Accion Funds needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
