Swot Analysis of "Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B)" written by James A. Phills, Debbie Choy, Justin McNabney, Erica Vaughan includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Bay Case.an facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Social enterprise, Strategy execution and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) casestudy better are - – wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices,
increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Bay Case.an, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Bay Case.an 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 Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Bay Case.an
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 Bay Case.an
Strengths Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Bay Case.an in Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Bay Case.an has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Bay Case.an to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Bay Case.an in the sector have low bargaining power. Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Bay Case.an to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Bay Case.an 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 Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Bay Case.an is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Bay Case.an has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Bay Case.an 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Bay Case.an is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Bay Case.an is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Bay Case.an 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Bay Case.an to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Bay Case.an to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Bay Case.an is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) 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 Bay Case.an
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Bay Case.an does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Bay Case.an has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Bay Case.an even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B), it seems that the employees of Bay Case.an 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Bay Case.an is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B), in the dynamic environment Bay Case.an has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Bay Case.an has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
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 Bay Case.an supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Bay Case.an vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B), is just above the industry average. Bay Case.an 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 star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) 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 Bay Case.an has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Bay Case.an 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 - Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Bay Case.an, firm in the HBR case study Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) HBR case study mentions - Bay Case.an 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Bay Case.an 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 Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) | 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 Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Bay Case.an 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.
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 Bay Case.an 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Bay Case.an 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 Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Bay Case.an to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Bay Case.an 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, Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Bay Case.an 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 Bay Case.an to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Bay Case.an 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Bay Case.an can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) 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, Bay Case.an 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Bay Case.an 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. Bay Case.an 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. Bay Case.an 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Bay Case.an 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 Bay Case.an in the consumer business. Now Bay Case.an can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Bay Case.an has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Bay Case.an to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) case study. Bay Case.an can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) are -
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Bay Case.an business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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 Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B), Bay Case.an 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 .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Bay Case.an is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Bay Case.an can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Bay Case.an needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Bay Case.an in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Bay Case.an has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Bay Case.an 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Bay Case.an with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Bay Case.an 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.
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. Bay Case.an 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 wage structure of Bay Case.an
– 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 Bay Case.an.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Bay Case.an can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) 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 Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) 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 Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) 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 Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) 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 Teach For America: The Bay Area Expansion (B) 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 Bay Case.an needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.