KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network
This case is available in only hard copy format (HBP does not have digital distribution rights to the content). As a result, a digital Educator Copy of the case is not available through this web site.Covers the origin, evolution, and nature of the KIPP Academies, two high-performing public middle schools founded in 1995 by Michael Feinberg and David Levin in Houston and New York. In January 2000, Feinberg and Levin meet with Scott Hamilton, managing director of the Pisces Foundation, to discuss the possible national replication of the KIPP school model. In addition to covering the wisdom and nature of a possible expansion strategy, they need to assess their common understanding of the essential attributes of the KIPP school program. Covers in detail the history of Feinberg and Levin's efforts to open their schools and the characteristics of their mature schools.
Swot Analysis of "KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network" written by Stig Leschly includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Kipp Feinberg facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Ethics, Growth strategy, Leadership, Social enterprise and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Kipp Feinberg, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Kipp Feinberg 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 KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Kipp Feinberg
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 Kipp Feinberg
Strengths KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Kipp Feinberg in KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network Harvard Business Review case study are -
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Kipp Feinberg digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Kipp Feinberg has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Strong track record of project management
– Kipp Feinberg 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 lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Kipp Feinberg is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Kipp Feinberg in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Kipp Feinberg 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 Kipp Feinberg is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Kipp Feinberg 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
– KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Kipp Feinberg to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Kipp Feinberg to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Kipp Feinberg 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Kipp Feinberg is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Kipp Feinberg is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network 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.
Analytics focus
– Kipp Feinberg 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 Stig Leschly 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Kipp Feinberg 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 KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network 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 KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Kipp Feinberg is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Kipp Feinberg, firm in the HBR case study KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Kipp Feinberg is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Kipp Feinberg needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Kipp Feinberg to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Kipp Feinberg 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Kipp Feinberg 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. Kipp Feinberg 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Kipp Feinberg 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Kipp Feinberg 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 - KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Stig Leschly suggests that, Kipp Feinberg 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network, it seems that the employees of Kipp Feinberg 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
– Kipp Feinberg 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network 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 Kipp Feinberg has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network | 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 KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network are -
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 Kipp Feinberg in the consumer business. Now Kipp Feinberg can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Kipp Feinberg 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 Kipp Feinberg 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Kipp Feinberg 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Kipp Feinberg 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Kipp Feinberg is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Kipp Feinberg 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, KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Kipp Feinberg can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Kipp Feinberg operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Kipp Feinberg 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Kipp Feinberg to increase its market reach. Kipp Feinberg 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Kipp Feinberg 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Kipp Feinberg 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Kipp Feinberg has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Kipp Feinberg to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network case study. Kipp Feinberg can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network are -
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.
Environmental challenges
– Kipp Feinberg 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. Kipp Feinberg can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
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. Kipp Feinberg 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Kipp Feinberg 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
– Kipp Feinberg 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.
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 Kipp Feinberg in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Kipp Feinberg business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Kipp Feinberg
– 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 Kipp Feinberg.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Kipp Feinberg 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 KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network .
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.
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. Kipp Feinberg needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Kipp Feinberg 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Kipp Feinberg 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 KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network 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 KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network 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 KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network 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 KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network 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 KIPP National--1999 (A): Designing a School Network 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 Kipp Feinberg needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
