Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
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Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact
This case explores management's challenge of how to best use a $10 million contribution to make the greatest impact for the poor. Acumen Fund is global philanthropic venture capital fund that seeks to prove that small amounts of philanthropic capital, combined with large doses of business acumen, can build thriving enterprises that serve vast numbers of the poor at the base of the pyramid. In recent years, the organization has expanded its work into talent building and knowledge creation. Students learn the different roles intermediary organizations like Acumen Fund play in facilitating the development of successful BoP ventures and why are these efforts needed.
Authors :: Ted London
Topics :: Strategy & Execution
Tags :: Emerging markets, Social enterprise, Social responsibility, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis
Swot Analysis of "Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact" written by Ted London includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Acumen Fund facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Emerging markets, Social enterprise, Social responsibility and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact casestudy better are - – increasing transportation and logistics costs, geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Acumen Fund, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Acumen Fund 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 Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Acumen Fund
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 Acumen Fund
Strengths Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Acumen Fund in Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact Harvard Business Review case study are -
Innovation driven organization
– Acumen Fund is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Acumen Fund 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 Acumen Fund in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management
– Acumen Fund is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Acumen Fund is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Acumen Fund to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Acumen Fund to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Acumen Fund 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 Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Acumen Fund has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Acumen Fund in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Acumen Fund 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 Acumen Fund is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Acumen Fund 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 Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Acumen Fund 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 Ted London 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 Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Acumen Fund digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Acumen Fund 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.
Weaknesses Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact, it seems that the employees of Acumen Fund 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Acumen Fund 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact 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 Acumen Fund 's lucrative customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Acumen Fund 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Acumen Fund 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact 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 Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Acumen Fund is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact, is just above the industry average. Acumen Fund 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Acumen Fund is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Acumen Fund needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Acumen Fund to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Acumen Fund 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact 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 Acumen Fund has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Acumen Fund products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Acumen Fund needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact | 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 Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact are -
Loyalty marketing
– Acumen Fund 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Acumen Fund can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Acumen Fund is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Acumen Fund can develop new processes and procedures in Strategy & Execution industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
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 Acumen Fund 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. Acumen Fund can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Acumen Fund 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Acumen Fund 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Acumen Fund 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Acumen Fund 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Acumen Fund 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, Acumen Fund can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Acumen Fund operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Acumen Fund to increase its market reach. Acumen Fund 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 Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact are -
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 Acumen Fund business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Acumen Fund 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.
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. Acumen Fund 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Acumen Fund 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.
Increasing wage structure of Acumen Fund
– 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 Acumen Fund.
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.
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. Acumen Fund can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Acumen Fund.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Acumen Fund 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact, Acumen Fund may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Strategy & Execution .
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Acumen Fund 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 Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact .
Regulatory challenges
– Acumen Fund 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact 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 Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact 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 Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact 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 Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact 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 Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact 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 Acumen Fund needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.