M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising
M-Changa was one of the fastest-growing fundraising platforms in Kenya, allowing Kenyans to use text messages on their mobile phones to send, receive, and track donated funds as well as solicit donations from family and friends. The young cofounders, Kyai Mullei and David Mark, had grown the company quickly by leveraging partnerships with large banks, mobile money operators, and NGOs. By April 2015, M-Changa had a team of five people serving 25,000 users. Now, it stood at a crossroads. M-Changa's board members had expressed concern that its multitude of partnerships may have spread the company too thin. The board urged Mullei and Mark to focus on the partnerships that would reap the most value for the company in the long run. Should M-Changa pursue partnerships with mobile money operators and banks that made it possible for users to transfer money conveniently and at a low cost, or instead focus on partners that allowed M-Changa to test new customer segments and increase sales? In addition, there was an estimated US$7 billion fundraising market across East Africa, so Mullei was tempted to test neighboring markets. Students will step into the shoes of Kyai Mullei as he and his team refine their partnership strategy at a crucial point in time for the venture.
Swot Analysis of "M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising" written by Sarit Markovich, Nilima Achwal includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Changa Mullei facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Communication, Entrepreneurship, Growth strategy, Innovation, International business, Joint ventures, Pricing, Strategic planning and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Changa Mullei, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Changa Mullei 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 M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Changa Mullei
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 Changa Mullei
Strengths M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Changa Mullei in M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising Harvard Business Review case study are -
Learning organization
- Changa Mullei 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 Changa Mullei is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Changa Mullei 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 M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising 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.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Changa Mullei digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Changa Mullei 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Changa Mullei to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Changa Mullei to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Changa Mullei has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Changa Mullei to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Changa Mullei 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Changa Mullei is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising 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
– Changa Mullei is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Changa Mullei 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 Changa Mullei in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Changa Mullei is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Analytics focus
– Changa Mullei 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 Sarit Markovich, Nilima Achwal 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.
Weaknesses M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Changa Mullei 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 star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising 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 Changa Mullei has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Changa Mullei 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 - M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Changa Mullei 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. Changa Mullei 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising, it seems that the employees of Changa Mullei 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Changa Mullei products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Changa Mullei needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Changa Mullei 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Changa Mullei is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising 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 M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Changa Mullei is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Sarit Markovich, Nilima Achwal suggests that, Changa Mullei 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Changa Mullei 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.
Opportunities M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising | 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 M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising are -
Buying journey improvements
– Changa Mullei can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Changa Mullei 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Strategy & Execution industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Changa Mullei can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Changa Mullei 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. Changa Mullei 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Changa Mullei 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Changa Mullei 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Changa Mullei can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Changa Mullei operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Changa Mullei 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Changa Mullei 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, M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Changa Mullei 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 M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Changa Mullei 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 Changa Mullei 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Changa Mullei 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.
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. Changa Mullei can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising are -
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. Changa Mullei 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
– Changa Mullei 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.
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 Changa Mullei.
Environmental challenges
– Changa Mullei needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Changa Mullei can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Changa Mullei has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Changa Mullei 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Changa Mullei 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.
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. Changa Mullei can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Changa Mullei business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Changa Mullei is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Changa Mullei 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.
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 Changa Mullei in the Strategy & Execution 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Changa Mullei 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 M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising 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 M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising 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 M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising 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 M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising 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 M-Changa: Leveraging Kenya's Mobile Money Market for Community Fundraising 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 Changa Mullei needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.