Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide?
After Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans Public School System is faced with rebuilding from the ground up. The challenge is enormous, as is the opportunity to remake the lowest performing public school system in Louisiana and one of the lowest performing in the nation. A variety of public officials, politicians, and entrepreneurs are engaged in the rebuilding process. Also, explores the tensions that emerge as the community faces both the rebuilding task and conflicting visions of what the future should look like.
Swot Analysis of "Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide?" written by Stacey Childress includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Rebuilding Orleans facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Financial management, Strategy and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Rebuilding Orleans, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Rebuilding Orleans 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 Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Rebuilding Orleans
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 Rebuilding Orleans
Strengths Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Rebuilding Orleans in Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Rebuilding Orleans has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Rebuilding Orleans 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.
High brand equity
– Rebuilding Orleans has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Rebuilding Orleans to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Rebuilding Orleans 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Rebuilding Orleans in the sector have low bargaining power. Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Rebuilding Orleans to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management
– Rebuilding Orleans is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Rebuilding Orleans 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 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Rebuilding Orleans 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 Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Rebuilding Orleans 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 Rebuilding Orleans is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Rebuilding Orleans 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 Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Rebuilding Orleans is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? 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 Rebuilding Orleans in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Rebuilding Orleans 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Rebuilding Orleans 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? 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 Rebuilding Orleans has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide?, in the dynamic environment Rebuilding Orleans has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Rebuilding Orleans has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Need for greater diversity
– Rebuilding Orleans 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Stacey Childress suggests that, Rebuilding Orleans 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide?, 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Rebuilding Orleans 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Rebuilding Orleans 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 - Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? HBR case study mentions - Rebuilding Orleans 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Rebuilding Orleans is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Opportunities Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? | 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 Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? 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. Rebuilding Orleans can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Rebuilding Orleans 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, Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide?, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Manufacturing automation
– Rebuilding Orleans 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Rebuilding Orleans 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Rebuilding Orleans 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Rebuilding Orleans 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 Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Rebuilding Orleans 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 Rebuilding Orleans can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Rebuilding Orleans is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Rebuilding Orleans to increase its market reach. Rebuilding Orleans 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Rebuilding Orleans 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Rebuilding Orleans 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 Rebuilding Orleans to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Rebuilding Orleans 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 Rebuilding Orleans 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.
Threats Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Rebuilding Orleans 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Rebuilding Orleans with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Rebuilding Orleans is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Rebuilding Orleans 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Rebuilding Orleans 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 Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? .
Environmental challenges
– Rebuilding Orleans 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. Rebuilding Orleans can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Rebuilding Orleans has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Rebuilding Orleans 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Rebuilding Orleans 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Rebuilding Orleans 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Rebuilding Orleans 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.
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 Rebuilding Orleans.
Increasing wage structure of Rebuilding Orleans
– 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 Rebuilding Orleans.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? 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 Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? 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 Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? 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 Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? 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 Rebuilding the New Orleans Public Schools: Turning the Tide? 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 Rebuilding Orleans needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
