EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet
The founder of English Street has decided to take the company to a group of venture capitalists. English Street is an Internet company that provides multimedia content for teaching English to Hong Kong and China residents. The founder has developed the idea of English Street into a prototype website, and is putting together a prospectus (proposal) for a presentation to obtain funding for full development of her business plan.
Swot Analysis of "EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet" written by Andrew Delios includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that English Street facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, International business, Internet, Strategic planning and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the English Street, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which English Street 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 EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of English Street
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 English Street
Strengths EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of English Street in EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that English Street 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.
Innovation driven organization
– English Street is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Diverse revenue streams
– English Street is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet 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
– English Street 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 EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled English Street to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped English Street to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of English Street
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that English Street does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- English Street 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 English Street is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– English Street has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. English Street 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)
– English Street 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 EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of English Street in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the English Street 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.
Weaknesses EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, English Street 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.
Need for greater diversity
– English Street 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.
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 English Street supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left English Street vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of English Street, firm in the HBR case study EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet 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 English Street has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
English Street 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at English Street 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet 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 English Street 's lucrative customers.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, English Street is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, English Street 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.
Opportunities EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet | 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 EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet are -
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. English Street can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– English Street can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, English Street 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.
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 English Street to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help English Street to increase its market reach. English Street 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at English Street 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.
Loyalty marketing
– English Street 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of English Street has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help English Street to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet case study. English Street can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– English Street 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, English Street can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that English Street operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– English Street 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 EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help English Street to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for English Street 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 English Street to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, English Street is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet 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.
Threats EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, English Street 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 EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet .
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 English Street in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. English Street 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.
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. English Street 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.
Regulatory challenges
– English Street 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– English Street 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet, English Street 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.
Increasing wage structure of English Street
– 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 English Street.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– English Street has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, English Street needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that English Street is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for English Street in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet 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 EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet 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 EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet 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 EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet 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 EnglishStreet.com: English on the Internet 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 English Street needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.