Case Study Description of SCORE! Educational Centers (D)
Describes Rob Waldron's actions upon assuming leadership of SCORE! Educational Centers, an after-school tutoring enterprise. Examines the issue of acquiring and growing a small, self-owned company into a professional organization. Focuses on the steps Waldron takes to address a growing employee morale problem. Concludes as Waldron must decide whether or not to alter the company's recruiting strategy.
Authors :: M. Diane Burton, Jeffrey L. Bradach, Naomi Atkins
Swot Analysis of "SCORE! Educational Centers (D)" written by M. Diane Burton, Jeffrey L. Bradach, Naomi Atkins includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Waldron Score facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in SCORE! Educational Centers (D) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Managing people, Organizational culture, Organizational structure, Talent management and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the SCORE! Educational Centers (D) casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of SCORE! Educational Centers (D)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in SCORE! Educational Centers (D) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Waldron Score, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Waldron Score 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 SCORE! Educational Centers (D) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in SCORE! Educational Centers (D) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Waldron Score
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 Waldron Score
Strengths SCORE! Educational Centers (D) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Waldron Score in SCORE! Educational Centers (D) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Waldron Score 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 SCORE! Educational Centers (D) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management
– Waldron Score is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Waldron Score 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.
Organizational Resilience of Waldron Score
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Waldron Score does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Waldron Score has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in SCORE! Educational Centers (D) 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Waldron Score is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in SCORE! Educational Centers (D) 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.
High brand equity
– Waldron Score has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Waldron Score to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Waldron Score is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in SCORE! Educational Centers (D) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Analytics focus
– Waldron Score 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 M. Diane Burton, Jeffrey L. Bradach, Naomi Atkins 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the SCORE! Educational Centers (D) 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.
Learning organization
- Waldron Score 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 Waldron Score is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in SCORE! Educational Centers (D) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Waldron Score are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Weaknesses SCORE! Educational Centers (D) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of SCORE! Educational Centers (D) 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 Waldron Score supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - SCORE! Educational Centers (D), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Waldron Score vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As SCORE! Educational Centers (D) HBR case study mentions - Waldron Score 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Waldron Score is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Waldron Score needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Waldron Score to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Waldron Score 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. Waldron Score 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, M. Diane Burton, Jeffrey L. Bradach, Naomi Atkins suggests that, Waldron Score is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study SCORE! Educational Centers (D), in the dynamic environment Waldron Score has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Waldron Score has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study SCORE! Educational Centers (D) has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Waldron Score 's lucrative customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study SCORE! Educational Centers (D), it seems that the employees of Waldron Score 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Waldron Score has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study SCORE! Educational Centers (D), is just above the industry average. Waldron Score 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Waldron Score products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Waldron Score needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities SCORE! Educational Centers (D) | 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 SCORE! Educational Centers (D) are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Waldron Score is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. SCORE! Educational Centers (D) 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Waldron Score can develop new processes and procedures in Leadership & Managing People 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Waldron Score can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Waldron Score can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Waldron Score 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 Waldron Score to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Waldron Score 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.
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 Waldron Score in the consumer business. Now Waldron Score can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Waldron Score 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 Leadership & Managing People segment.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Leadership & Managing People industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Waldron Score 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. Waldron Score 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Waldron Score can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. SCORE! Educational Centers (D) 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Waldron Score to increase its market reach. Waldron Score will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Waldron Score 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Waldron Score has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Waldron Score to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the SCORE! Educational Centers (D) case study. Waldron Score can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats SCORE! Educational Centers (D) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study SCORE! Educational Centers (D) are -
Regulatory challenges
– Waldron Score 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Waldron Score 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 SCORE! Educational Centers (D) .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Waldron Score has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Waldron Score needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Leadership & Managing People 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.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Waldron Score
– 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 Waldron Score.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Waldron Score 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 Waldron Score is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Waldron Score business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Waldron Score 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. Waldron Score can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
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.
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 Waldron Score in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Waldron Score can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Waldron Score 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 SCORE! Educational Centers (D) 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 SCORE! Educational Centers (D) 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 SCORE! Educational Centers (D) 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 SCORE! Educational Centers (D) 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 SCORE! Educational Centers (D) 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 Waldron Score needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
