Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
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Case Study Description of Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience
This document is one of three available case-based simulations used as the basis for a multisession course on design thinking. The course emphasizes deep user understanding, iteration, and a focus on the possibilities as a way to enhance value creation for stakeholders. Please refer to the course teaching guide to view the additional essential pedagogical tools available to the course instructor-including several hours of video content and a set of posters that summarize ethnographic interview findings for each simulation scenario. The vice provost for academic affairs at Trenton State College (TSC) is tasked with designing a new retirement experience for faculty at the college. TSC, a public institution serving the state of Missouri, employs more than 1,500 full-time faculty and is facing a wave of upcoming retirements and an existing process that few feel is working well. Students play the role of a member of the provost's office who has been charged with reviewing the experience of retirees and recommending to TSC's leaders ideas to improve the retirement experience for faculty.
Swot Analysis of "Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience" written by Jeanne M. Liedtka includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Faculty Trenton facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Strategy and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Faculty Trenton, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Faculty Trenton 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 Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Faculty Trenton
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Faculty Trenton
Strengths Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Faculty Trenton in Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience Harvard Business Review case study are -
Learning organization
- Faculty Trenton 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 Faculty Trenton is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Faculty Trenton has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Faculty Trenton to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Faculty Trenton in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Faculty Trenton 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 Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Faculty Trenton digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Faculty Trenton 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Faculty Trenton in the sector have low bargaining power. Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Faculty Trenton to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience 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.
Analytics focus
– Faculty Trenton 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. Liedtka 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Faculty Trenton has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Faculty Trenton 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Faculty Trenton 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.
Organizational Resilience of Faculty Trenton
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Faculty Trenton does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Faculty Trenton is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience are -
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 Faculty Trenton supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Faculty Trenton vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience 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 Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Faculty Trenton is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Faculty Trenton 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Faculty Trenton, firm in the HBR case study Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Faculty Trenton 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 - Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Jeanne M. Liedtka suggests that, Faculty Trenton 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience 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 Faculty Trenton has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Faculty Trenton 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Faculty Trenton has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Lack of clear differentiation of Faculty Trenton products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Faculty Trenton needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Faculty Trenton 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.
Opportunities Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience | 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 Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Faculty Trenton 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 Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Faculty Trenton 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 Faculty Trenton 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. Faculty Trenton can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Faculty Trenton 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, Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Faculty Trenton in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Strategy & Execution segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Faculty Trenton 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 Faculty Trenton to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Strategy & Execution industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Faculty Trenton 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. Faculty Trenton 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Faculty Trenton can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Faculty Trenton can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Faculty Trenton can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Strategy & Execution 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, Faculty Trenton is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Faculty Trenton 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 Strategy & Execution segment.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Faculty Trenton 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.
Threats Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Faculty Trenton 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.
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 Faculty Trenton business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Faculty Trenton with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Strategy & Execution field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Faculty Trenton can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Faculty Trenton in the Strategy & Execution industry. The Strategy & Execution 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.
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 Faculty Trenton.
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. Faculty Trenton 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Faculty Trenton 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 Strategy & Execution industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Faculty Trenton 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 Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Faculty Trenton has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Faculty Trenton needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Strategy & Execution 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.
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 Faculty Trenton in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Faculty Trenton 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience 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 Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience 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 Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience 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 Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience 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 Design Thinking at Trenton State College: Designing a Faculty Retirement Experience 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 Faculty Trenton needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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