Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana
Noam Angrist cofounded Young 1ove with the promise of connecting young Africans to proven life-saving information. By massively scaling sexual health information campaigns that were previously shown in randomized trials to have significant impact, he hoped Young 1ove would be able to reach 1 million youth in Africa by 2017. However, while he and his team were less than a year into the project, they were already dealing with anfractuous government processes, strained by limited resources, and unsure of how their operations would succeed at scale. There were also important decisions ahead: Which delivery model would most efficiently and effectively scale the Young 1ove educational campaign? When and how- if at all-should they rigorously test an intervention that they had reason to believe was already working? Though convinced wholeheartedly in the importance of the Young 1ove mission and excited by its early progress, Angrist pondered these important decisions and how their resolution would figure in the organization's path forward.
Swot Analysis of "Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana" written by Matthew Saucedo, Russell Siegelman includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that 1ove Angrist facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Social enterprise and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the 1ove Angrist, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which 1ove Angrist 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 Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of 1ove Angrist
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 1ove Angrist
Strengths Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of 1ove Angrist in Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– 1ove Angrist 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 Matthew Saucedo, Russell Siegelman 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of 1ove Angrist in the sector have low bargaining power. Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps 1ove Angrist to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– 1ove Angrist is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled 1ove Angrist to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped 1ove Angrist to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– 1ove Angrist 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 Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that 1ove Angrist 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of 1ove Angrist in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- 1ove Angrist 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 1ove Angrist is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– 1ove Angrist is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
High brand equity
– 1ove Angrist has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled 1ove Angrist to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– 1ove Angrist has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. 1ove Angrist 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana 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.
Weaknesses Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana are -
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 1ove Angrist supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left 1ove Angrist vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana 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 Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as 1ove Angrist is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana, it seems that the employees of 1ove Angrist 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at 1ove Angrist 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, 1ove Angrist 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana HBR case study mentions - 1ove Angrist 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of 1ove Angrist, firm in the HBR case study Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana 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 Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana 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 1ove Angrist has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
1ove Angrist 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though 1ove Angrist 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 - Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana, 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.
Opportunities Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana | 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 Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at 1ove Angrist 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of 1ove Angrist has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help 1ove Angrist to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana case study. 1ove Angrist can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– 1ove Angrist 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.
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 1ove Angrist in the consumer business. Now 1ove Angrist can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– 1ove Angrist 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 Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help 1ove Angrist to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. 1ove Angrist 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. 1ove Angrist 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects 1ove Angrist can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for 1ove Angrist 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.
Loyalty marketing
– 1ove Angrist 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, 1ove Angrist can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that 1ove Angrist operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, 1ove Angrist 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, Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana, 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 1ove Angrist 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for 1ove Angrist 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 1ove Angrist to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that 1ove Angrist is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– 1ove Angrist 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. 1ove Angrist can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents 1ove Angrist with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. 1ove Angrist can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, 1ove Angrist 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 Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana .
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.
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 1ove Angrist.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for 1ove Angrist 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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana, 1ove Angrist 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 .
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. 1ove Angrist needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– 1ove Angrist 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
– 1ove Angrist 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana 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 Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana 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 Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana 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 Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana 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 Young 1ove: Scaling in Botswana 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 1ove Angrist needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.