Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Global Business
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees
One Acre Fund (1AF) is a nonprofit organization in rural western Kenya that helps farmers lift themselves out of poverty by providing a bundle of products and services that support farmers with quality inputs, training on farming techniques, access to credit, and assistance in achieving optimal prices. Since the organization's founding nearly a decade ago, it has grown to serve over 180,000 farm families annually as of July 2014. This high level of penetration into rural Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania makes 1AF a potential distribution channel for rolling out new products and technologies that could benefit farmers and their families. The organization prides itself on its innovative culture, and always strives to offer new products and methods to its farmers. In 2011 1AF realized that it needed to formalize its innovation process to ensure it was confident in new products before rolling them out across its entire farmer network. It therefore created a robust, multistep evaluation framework to assess new innovations on four criteria: impact, adoptability, simplicity, and operability.
Swot Analysis of "Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees" written by Jamie Jones, Grace Augustine includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that 1af Farmers facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Organizational structure, Product development, Social enterprise and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the 1af Farmers, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which 1af Farmers 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 Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of 1af Farmers
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 1af Farmers
Strengths Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of 1af Farmers in Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees Harvard Business Review case study are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Global Business industry
– Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled 1af Farmers to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped 1af Farmers to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of 1af Farmers in the sector have low bargaining power. Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps 1af Farmers to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– 1af Farmers 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 Jamie Jones, Grace Augustine 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the 1af Farmers 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of 1af Farmers in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– 1af Farmers has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees 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.
Innovation driven organization
– 1af Farmers is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Highly skilled collaborators
– 1af Farmers 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 Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management
– 1af Farmers is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– 1af Farmers has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. 1af Farmers 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– 1af Farmers 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 Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees are -
Lack of clear differentiation of 1af Farmers products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, 1af Farmers needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees, is just above the industry average. 1af Farmers 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 strategic competitive environment developments
– As Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees HBR case study mentions - 1af Farmers 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees, 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees 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 Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as 1af Farmers 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 Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees 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 1af Farmers has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, 1af Farmers 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. 1af Farmers 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.
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 1af Farmers supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left 1af Farmers vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees, in the dynamic environment 1af Farmers has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. 1af Farmers has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Jamie Jones, Grace Augustine suggests that, 1af Farmers is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, 1af Farmers has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Opportunities Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees | 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 Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, 1af Farmers is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees 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.
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. 1af Farmers can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 1af Farmers 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, 1af Farmers 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, Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for 1af Farmers 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 1af Farmers 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.
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. 1af Farmers 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. 1af Farmers 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.
Buying journey improvements
– 1af Farmers can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– 1af Farmers can develop new processes and procedures in Global Business 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– 1af Farmers 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help 1af Farmers to increase its market reach. 1af Farmers 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects 1af Farmers 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 Global Business industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. 1af Farmers can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees, 1af Farmers 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 .
Consumer confidence and its impact on 1af Farmers 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, 1af Farmers 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 Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that 1af Farmers is facing in Global Business sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents 1af Farmers 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
– 1af Farmers has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, 1af Farmers 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
– 1af Farmers 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for 1af Farmers in the Global Business industry. The Global Business 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.
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 1af Farmers.
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 1af Farmers business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of 1af Farmers
– 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 1af Farmers.
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. 1af Farmers can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees 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 Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees 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 Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees 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 Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees 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 Innovation at One Acre Fund: Seeing the Forest for the Trees 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 1af Farmers needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
