Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada
In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the not-for-profit sector in Ontario was forced to shift from a provider of social needs to a creator of social opportunities for communities doubly hit by rising unemployment and falling social supports. The Ontario Trillium Foundation moved to fund innovative, collaborative programs involving not-for-profit organizations, businesses and governments in creating viable social enterprises. Ottawa, London and Sarnia were three communities faced with different, but still difficult economic times, and each had responded to the crisis by proposing alternative models of social transition. In 2013, representatives from the not-for-profit sector in these cities joined with the Richard Ivey School of Business to present a proposal that promised they would work collaboratively, learn from each other, document the entire process and develop tools to prepare and guide many others. Would the Trillium Foundation support such a creative and ambitious project?
Authors :: Oana Branzei, Marlene J. Le Ber, Patrick Shulist
Swot Analysis of "Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada" written by Oana Branzei, Marlene J. Le Ber, Patrick Shulist includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Trillium Social facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Recession, Strategy and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions,
increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Trillium Social, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Trillium Social 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 Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Trillium Social
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 Trillium Social
Strengths Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Trillium Social in Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– Trillium Social 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 Oana Branzei, Marlene J. Le Ber, Patrick Shulist 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Trillium Social in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Trillium Social 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 Trillium Social is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Trillium Social in the sector have low bargaining power. Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Trillium Social to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Trillium Social is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Strong track record of project management
– Trillium Social is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Trillium Social
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Trillium Social does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Trillium Social 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 Trillium Social in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Trillium Social has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Trillium Social 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Trillium Social 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 Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Trillium Social is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada 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.
Weaknesses Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Trillium Social, firm in the HBR case study Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Trillium Social 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada 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 Trillium Social 's lucrative customers.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada 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 Trillium Social has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Trillium Social is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada 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 Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada, in the dynamic environment Trillium Social has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Trillium Social has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada, it seems that the employees of Trillium Social 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Trillium Social products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Trillium Social needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Trillium Social needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Trillium Social has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Oana Branzei, Marlene J. Le Ber, Patrick Shulist suggests that, Trillium Social 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.
Opportunities Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada | 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 Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Trillium Social 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, Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Trillium Social 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Trillium Social 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Trillium Social 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Trillium Social can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Leadership & Managing People industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Trillium Social can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Manufacturing automation
– Trillium Social 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Trillium Social is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Trillium Social 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 Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Trillium Social to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Trillium Social can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Trillium Social operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– Trillium Social 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Trillium Social 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 Trillium Social to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Trillium Social can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada, Trillium Social 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 .
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Trillium Social 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 Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada .
Consumer confidence and its impact on Trillium Social 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.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Trillium Social.
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. Trillium Social needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Trillium Social
– 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 Trillium Social.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Trillium Social is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Trillium Social 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. Trillium Social 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 Trillium Social with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Environmental challenges
– Trillium Social 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. Trillium Social can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada 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 Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada 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 Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada 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 Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada 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 Social Enterprise for Sustainable Communities: Ontario, Canada 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 Trillium Social needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
