In early 2001, Charitableway, an ePhilanthropy application service provider that enabled the collection of charitable donations online; faced major strategic decisions relating to its alliance with United Way of America to foster workplace giving online. One of the best capitalized dot-coms operating in the new ePhilanthropy sector and a pioneer in the workplace giving segment, it nonetheless, faced a series of challenges that threatened its success and even survival.
Swot Analysis of "Charitableway" written by James E. Austin, Liz Kind includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Charitableway Ephilanthropy facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Charitableway case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Social enterprise and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Charitableway casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, technology disruption, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, wage bills are increasing,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Charitableway case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Charitableway Ephilanthropy, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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 Charitableway can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Charitableway case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Charitableway Ephilanthropy
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 Charitableway Ephilanthropy
Strengths Charitableway | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Charitableway Ephilanthropy in Charitableway Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Charitableway Ephilanthropy has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– Charitableway firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Charitableway Ephilanthropy to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Charitableway Ephilanthropy to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Charitableway Ephilanthropy is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Charitableway 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Charitableway Ephilanthropy in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Charitableway 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.
Organizational Resilience of Charitableway Ephilanthropy
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Charitableway Ephilanthropy does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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
– Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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 Charitableway Ephilanthropy in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management
– Charitableway Ephilanthropy is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Charitableway Ephilanthropy is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Charitableway Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Charitableway Ephilanthropy is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Charitableway are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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 Charitableway | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Charitableway are -
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, James E. Austin, Liz Kind suggests that, Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Charitableway, in the dynamic environment Charitableway Ephilanthropy has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Charitableway Ephilanthropy has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Charitableway, it seems that the employees of Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Charitableway Ephilanthropy products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Charitableway Ephilanthropy needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Charitableway, is just above the industry average. Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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.
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 Charitableway Ephilanthropy supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Charitableway, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Charitableway Ephilanthropy vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Charitableway 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 Charitableway can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Charitableway Ephilanthropy is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Charitableway Ephilanthropy is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Charitableway Ephilanthropy needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Charitableway Ephilanthropy to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Charitableway Ephilanthropy has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Charitableway should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Opportunities Charitableway | 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 Charitableway are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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
– Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Charitableway Ephilanthropy can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Charitableway 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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 Charitableway - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Charitableway Ephilanthropy to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Charitableway Ephilanthropy can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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. Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Charitableway Ephilanthropy can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Charitableway Ephilanthropy operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Charitableway Ephilanthropy to increase its market reach. Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Charitableway Ephilanthropy in the consumer business. Now Charitableway Ephilanthropy can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Charitableway External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Charitableway are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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 Charitableway .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Charitableway Ephilanthropy is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Charitableway, Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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 .
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Charitableway Ephilanthropy with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Charitableway Ephilanthropy needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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 wage structure of Charitableway Ephilanthropy
– 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 Charitableway Ephilanthropy.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Charitableway Ephilanthropy has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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.
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 Charitableway Ephilanthropy.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Charitableway Ephilanthropy 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Charitableway 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 Charitableway 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 Charitableway 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 Charitableway 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 Charitableway 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 Charitableway Ephilanthropy needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
