Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
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Case Study Description of Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up
In 2012, amid much fanfare, Peru's President Ollanta Humala launched an ambitious program on early childhood development called Cuna Mas. The program, based on a successful home visiting intervention in Jamaica, was designed to improve the cognitive and emotional development of children below the age of three, living in poverty. The government's aim was to scale the program nationwide. Initially, despite the logistical challenges of reaching rural communities in a geographically diverse country-from communities residing high up in the Andes to those deep in the Amazon jungle-the program grew at a rapid rate, increasing coverage by 50 percent or more each year between 2012 and 2015. By early 2016, however, Cuna Mas encountered a formidable set of challenges. Amid political pressure to increase coverage quickly, the program had to ensure that it continued to deliver a quality service-even as Cuna Mas staff navigated the delicate task of convincing communities to adopt a program that, at its heart, relied on the willingness of families to let strangers into their homes. Cuna Mas staff was nonetheless hopeful. In many instances, it was the first social program to reach remote, vulnerable populations across Peru. But some civil society groups that had initially hailed President Humala for focusing on early childhood now argued that the program was hobbled by operational challenges that threatened the long-term sustainability of the program. As the April 2016 elections loomed on the horizon a crucial question about Humala's flagship program lingered. Could Cuna Mas deliver with quality at scale? Case number 2115.0
Swot Analysis of "Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up" written by Anjani Datla, Julie Boatright Wilson includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Cuna Mas facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Generational issues, Government, Strategy and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cuna Mas, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cuna Mas 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 Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cuna Mas
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Global Business field.
4. Making a Global Business topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Cuna Mas
Strengths Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cuna Mas in Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Global Business field
– Cuna Mas 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 Cuna Mas in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Cuna Mas has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Cuna Mas has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Training and development
– Cuna Mas has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up 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.
Digital Transformation in Global Business segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Cuna Mas digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Cuna Mas 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Cuna Mas in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Cuna Mas
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Cuna Mas does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Cuna Mas 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.
Analytics focus
– Cuna Mas 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 Anjani Datla, Julie Boatright Wilson 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up 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.
High brand equity
– Cuna Mas has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Cuna Mas to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Cuna Mas in the sector have low bargaining power. Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Cuna Mas to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Cuna Mas 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.
Weaknesses Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Cuna Mas 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Cuna Mas 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up 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 Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Cuna Mas is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Cuna Mas products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Cuna Mas needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Cuna Mas 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Global Business 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Cuna Mas 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Cuna Mas is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up, it seems that the employees of Cuna Mas 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up HBR case study mentions - Cuna Mas 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Cuna Mas is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Global Business segment. Cuna Mas needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Cuna Mas to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up | 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 Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Cuna Mas 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Cuna Mas to increase its market reach. Cuna Mas 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Cuna Mas is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Cuna Mas in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Global Business segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Cuna Mas 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Cuna Mas 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 Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Cuna Mas to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Global Business industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Cuna Mas 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. Cuna Mas 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Cuna Mas can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Global Business 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Cuna Mas 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Global Business industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Cuna Mas can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Cuna Mas 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Cuna Mas 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, Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Cuna Mas can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Threats Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up 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. Cuna Mas 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up, Cuna Mas may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Global Business .
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 Cuna Mas in the Global Business sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Cuna Mas is facing in Global Business sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Cuna Mas 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 Global Business industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Cuna Mas 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 Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up .
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 Cuna Mas business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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. Cuna Mas needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Global Business industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Cuna Mas 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
– Cuna Mas has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Cuna Mas needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Global Business 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Cuna Mas 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Global Business field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Cuna Mas can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up 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 Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up 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 Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up 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 Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up 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 Cuna Mas: Peru's Early Childhood Program Struggles to Maintain Quality as It Scales Up 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 Cuna Mas needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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