College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact
To maximize their effectiveness, color cases should be printed in color.College Summit, a nonprofit organization "committed to the day when every student who can make it in college makes it to college," was faced with an important strategic decision. After growing rapidly at more than 30% a year for the last several years, Founder and CEO J.B. Schramm, Chief Strategy Officer Mora Segal, and the College Summit team must now decide whether or not to dramatically redefine their organization's theory of change. College Summit could continue to "get results and grow real fast" or make the bold choice to re-conceptualize its strategy to focus on system-level change. While there were numerous risks to pursuing the alternative strategy, for Schramm and Segal, the possibility of helping redefine the purpose of secondary education might be too significant to ignore.
Swot Analysis of "College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact" written by Stacey Childress, Geoff Marietta includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Summit College facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Growth strategy, Social responsibility and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing transportation and logistics costs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Summit College, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Summit College 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 College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Summit College
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field.
4. Making a Innovation & Entrepreneurship topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Summit College
Strengths College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Summit College in College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Summit College in the sector have low bargaining power. College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Summit College to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Summit College 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.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Summit College 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 Summit College 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
– Summit College has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Summit College 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.
Analytics focus
– Summit College 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 Stacey Childress, Geoff Marietta 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.
Organizational Resilience of Summit College
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Summit College does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Summit College 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 College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Summit College 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Summit College 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 College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management
– Summit College is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- Summit College 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 Summit College is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Summit College is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Summit College 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Summit College, firm in the HBR case study College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Summit College products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Summit College needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact, in the dynamic environment Summit College has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Summit College has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact HBR case study mentions - Summit College 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Summit College 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Summit College 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 College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Summit College 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 College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Summit College has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Summit College 's lucrative customers.
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 Summit College supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Summit College vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Opportunities College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Summit College 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Summit College to increase its market reach. Summit College 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Summit College can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Summit College 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 Summit College to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Summit College can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Summit College operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Summit College has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Summit College to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact case study. Summit College can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Summit College 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 College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Summit College to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– Summit College can develop new processes and procedures in Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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 Summit College 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Summit College 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Summit College can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Summit College 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Summit College in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact are -
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. Summit College needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Summit College can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Summit College 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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Summit College is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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 Summit College with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Environmental challenges
– Summit College needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Summit College can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Increasing wage structure of Summit College
– 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 Summit College.
Regulatory challenges
– Summit College 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Summit College 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 College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact, Summit College may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Innovation & Entrepreneurship .
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Summit College 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of College Summit: Rethinking the Relationship Between Growth and Impact is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Summit College needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
