Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy
Set in April 2014, this case explores some of the important questions confronting Dileep Ranjekar and Anurag Behar, CEOs of the Azim Premji Foundation, which had entered the second decade of its existence with fresh plans and renewed vigor. Ranjekar and Behar had evolved an organizational strategy, after carefully reflecting on the Foundation's past work, that was characterized by the idea of working in an "institutional" mode and not merely in a "programmatic" mode. This meant establishing a long-term presence in the places where the Foundation worked (i.e., disadvantaged districts in the country), and engaging on a continuous and long-term basis with the public education system to facilitate change. Given the trajectory that the management team had set for the Foundation, it was constantly faced with issues related to finding the right people with the required skill sets and mindset, finding field staff to overcome the challenges of working in difficult, far-flung places, and scaling up at the right speed to achieve the desired reach and outcomes. Documenting the evolution and growth of the Foundation, the case brings to light some of the key challenges it faced in scaling up. The case highlights some of the challenges of building a large, professionally managed not-for-profit and the strategic decisions that have to be made to grow it into a sustainable organization.
Swot Analysis of "Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy" written by Raveendra Chittoor, Geetika Shah includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Foundation Behar facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Social enterprise, Strategy and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy casestudy better are - – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing energy prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Foundation Behar, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Foundation Behar 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 Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Foundation Behar
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 Foundation Behar
Strengths Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Foundation Behar in Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Foundation Behar 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Foundation Behar in the sector have low bargaining power. Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Foundation Behar to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Foundation Behar 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 Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy - 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 Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy 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.
Organizational Resilience of Foundation Behar
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Foundation Behar does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Foundation Behar is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy 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
– Foundation Behar 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 recruit top talent
– Foundation Behar is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Training and development
– Foundation Behar has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Foundation Behar is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy 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.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Foundation Behar 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 Foundation Behar in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Foundation Behar to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Foundation Behar to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy 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 Foundation Behar 's lucrative customers.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Foundation Behar 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 Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy 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 Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Foundation Behar is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy 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 Foundation Behar has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Foundation Behar 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy, in the dynamic environment Foundation Behar has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Foundation Behar has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy, is just above the industry average. Foundation Behar 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Foundation Behar is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Foundation Behar products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Foundation Behar needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Foundation Behar 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 strategic competitive environment developments
– As Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy HBR case study mentions - Foundation Behar 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.
Opportunities Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy | 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 Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Foundation Behar 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Foundation Behar has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Foundation Behar to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy case study. Foundation Behar can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Foundation Behar 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Foundation Behar 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 Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Foundation Behar to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Foundation Behar 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 Foundation Behar to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Foundation Behar 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Foundation Behar can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Foundation Behar operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Foundation Behar is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Foundation Behar 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, Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Foundation Behar 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Foundation Behar to increase its market reach. Foundation Behar 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Foundation Behar 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Foundation Behar 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.
Threats Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Foundation Behar 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.
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 Foundation Behar.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Foundation Behar with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Foundation Behar has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Foundation Behar 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Foundation Behar 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 Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy .
Increasing wage structure of Foundation Behar
– 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 Foundation Behar.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Foundation Behar 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Foundation Behar is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Foundation Behar 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Foundation Behar 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. Foundation Behar can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Foundation Behar 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.
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 Foundation Behar business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy 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 Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy 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 Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy 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 Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy 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 Azim Premji Foundation - Bringing Professional Excellence to Philanthropy 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 Foundation Behar needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
