Case Study Description of Ninth House: e-Learning Software
Jeff Snipes, CEO of the Ninth House Network, a San Francisco-based E-Learning company, considers a strategy shift to address a recent slump in sales and to attract more customers. The revised strategy would require creating shorter, more directed content that could be delivered cheaply and quickly. A CD-ROM was being built as well to address customer concerns about bandwidth. The sales team was considering a narrow focus on companies with a connection to broadband services. But how would this affect the Ninth House culture? Would the organizational structure have to change? Would new content require a different selling model?
Authors :: Amy C. Edmondson, Frances X. Frei, Corey Hajim
Swot Analysis of "Ninth House: e-Learning Software" written by Amy C. Edmondson, Frances X. Frei, Corey Hajim includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Ninth House facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Ninth House: e-Learning Software case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Leading teams, Organizational culture, Supply chain and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Ninth House: e-Learning Software casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Ninth House: e-Learning Software
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Ninth House: e-Learning Software case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ninth House, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ninth House 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 Ninth House: e-Learning Software can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Ninth House: e-Learning Software case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ninth House
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Technology & Operations field.
4. Making a Technology & Operations topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ninth House
Strengths Ninth House: e-Learning Software | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ninth House in Ninth House: e-Learning Software Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Ninth House in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Ninth House 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 Ninth House: e-Learning Software - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Ninth House 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ninth House are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Ninth House 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 Ninth House is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Ninth House: e-Learning Software Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Technology & Operations industry
– Ninth House: e-Learning Software firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ninth House to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Technology & Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ninth House to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Ninth House is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Ninth House: e-Learning Software case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ninth House 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 Ninth House: e-Learning Software HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Ninth House has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ninth House to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Technology & Operations field
– Ninth House 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 Ninth House in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ninth House in the sector have low bargaining power. Ninth House: e-Learning Software has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ninth House to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Ninth House has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Ninth House: e-Learning Software 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.
Weaknesses Ninth House: e-Learning Software | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ninth House: e-Learning Software are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Ninth House, firm in the HBR case study Ninth House: e-Learning Software needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Ninth House: e-Learning Software 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 Ninth House: e-Learning Software can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ninth House is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Ninth House is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Technology & Operations segment. Ninth House needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Ninth House to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ninth House 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. Ninth House 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ninth House products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ninth House needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Ninth House 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Ninth House is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Ninth House: e-Learning Software can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Ninth House: e-Learning Software, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Technology & Operations strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Ninth House: e-Learning Software, it seems that the employees of Ninth House 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ninth House 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.
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 Ninth House supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Ninth House: e-Learning Software, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Ninth House vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Opportunities Ninth House: e-Learning Software | 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 Ninth House: e-Learning Software are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Technology & Operations industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Ninth House 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. Ninth House 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Ninth House can develop new processes and procedures in Technology & Operations 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Ninth House 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 Technology & Operations segment.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ninth House 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ninth House 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 Ninth House to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Ninth House 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ninth House in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Technology & Operations segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ninth House can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Technology & Operations industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Ninth House can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Ninth House in the consumer business. Now Ninth House can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Ninth House 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, Ninth House: e-Learning Software, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Manufacturing automation
– Ninth House can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Technology & Operations 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, Ninth House can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ninth House operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Technology & Operations sector.
Threats Ninth House: e-Learning Software External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Ninth House: e-Learning Software are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ninth House 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.
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 Ninth House in the Technology & Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ninth House in the Technology & Operations industry. The Technology & Operations 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ninth House is facing in Technology & Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Ninth House needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Technology & Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Ninth House business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Ninth House
– 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 Ninth House.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ninth House 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Ninth House: e-Learning Software, Ninth House may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Technology & Operations .
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ninth House 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.
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 Ninth House.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Technology & Operations field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Ninth House can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Ninth House: e-Learning Software 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 Ninth House: e-Learning Software 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 Ninth House: e-Learning Software 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 Ninth House: e-Learning Software 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 Ninth House: e-Learning Software 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 Ninth House needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
