Faculty and Students: Making the Grade SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Faculty and Students: Making the Grade
What is the proper role of the instructor in student-professor interactions? What challenges should new teachers expect and what pitfalls should be avoided? New faculty must meet a variety of concurrent demands when they enter an academic career, several for which they have never received any formal training. Various activities broaden the educational scope of the teacher beyond the classroom, and increase interaction with the student body. Many academic communities are settled in smaller university towns, where students and faculty share the community life: this can add another complicating layer. Establishing a strong relationship with a faculty mentor may be among the most important factors determining the success one achieves as a graduate student. So how is balance achieved in managing the multiple roles faculty members play in students' lives? This case reveals the impact of a teacher's personal relationship with students outside the classroom and the challenges of being involved with student development beyond the curriculum.
Authors :: James G. Clawson, Gerry Yemen, Charl de Plessis
Swot Analysis of "Faculty and Students: Making the Grade" written by James G. Clawson, Gerry Yemen, Charl de Plessis includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Faculty Student facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Faculty and Students: Making the Grade case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Education and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Faculty and Students: Making the Grade casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Faculty and Students: Making the Grade
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Faculty and Students: Making the Grade case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Faculty Student, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Faculty Student 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 Faculty and Students: Making the Grade can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Faculty and Students: Making the Grade case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Faculty Student
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Faculty Student
Strengths Faculty and Students: Making the Grade | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Faculty Student in Faculty and Students: Making the Grade Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Faculty Student in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Faculty Student 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 James G. Clawson, Gerry Yemen, Charl de Plessis 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Faculty Student is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Faculty Student is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Faculty and Students: Making the Grade are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Diverse revenue streams
– Faculty Student is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Faculty and Students: Making the Grade 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.
Training and development
– Faculty Student has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Faculty and Students: Making the Grade Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Faculty Student 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 Faculty Student in the sector have low bargaining power. Faculty and Students: Making the Grade has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Faculty Student to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Faculty Student 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Faculty and Students: Making the Grade firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Faculty Student to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Faculty Student to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Faculty Student 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 Faculty and Students: Making the Grade HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Faculty Student 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 Faculty Student is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Faculty and Students: Making the Grade Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses Faculty and Students: Making the Grade | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Faculty and Students: Making the Grade are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Faculty Student 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 harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Faculty Student is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Faculty and Students: Making the Grade can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Faculty Student 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Faculty Student 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Faculty and Students: Making the Grade 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 Faculty and Students: Making the Grade can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Faculty Student is planning to shift buying processes online.
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 Faculty Student supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Faculty and Students: Making the Grade, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Faculty Student vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Faculty and Students: Making the Grade, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Leadership & Managing People 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Faculty Student, firm in the HBR case study Faculty and Students: Making the Grade needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Faculty and Students: Making the Grade, is just above the industry average. Faculty Student 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Faculty and Students: Making the Grade, in the dynamic environment Faculty Student has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Faculty Student has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Faculty Student products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Faculty Student needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities Faculty and Students: Making the Grade | 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 Faculty and Students: Making the Grade are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Faculty Student is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Faculty and Students: Making the Grade 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Faculty Student 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Faculty Student 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, Faculty and Students: Making the Grade, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Faculty Student 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Faculty Student has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Faculty Student to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Faculty and Students: Making the Grade case study. Faculty Student can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Faculty Student 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Faculty Student to increase its market reach. Faculty Student 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Faculty Student can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Faculty Student operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
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. Faculty Student can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Faculty Student 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Faculty Student in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Leadership & Managing People segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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 Faculty Student 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
– Faculty Student 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 Faculty and Students: Making the Grade - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Faculty Student to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Faculty and Students: Making the Grade External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Faculty and Students: Making the Grade are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Faculty Student with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Environmental challenges
– Faculty Student 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. Faculty Student can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Faculty Student in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The Leadership & Managing People 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.
Increasing wage structure of Faculty Student
– 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 Faculty Student.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Faculty Student 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 Faculty and Students: Making the Grade .
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Faculty and Students: Making the Grade, Faculty Student may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Leadership & Managing People .
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.
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. Faculty Student needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Faculty Student 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Faculty Student 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Faculty Student 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
– Faculty Student 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 Leadership & Managing People industry regulations.
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. Faculty Student 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Faculty and Students: Making the Grade 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 Faculty and Students: Making the Grade 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 Faculty and Students: Making the Grade 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 Faculty and Students: Making the Grade 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 Faculty and Students: Making the Grade 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 Faculty Student needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
