Case Study Description of Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A)
The case presents the dilemma of Mr. Bhattacharya, the principal of Chandrabala Modi Academy, a three year old co-educational school, having classes up to grade VIII, located in the city of Ankleshwar in the industrial belt of Western India, in responding to a request made by a senior official of the Police Department and President of Rotary Club. He was informed by them that the menace of drug abuse in the city was increasing and how the children of the school might get affected. They had explored the possibility of the school initiating a campaign to educate the local community and the school children, against drugs. Mr. Bhattacharya wondered if the school could organise an activity that engaged the children in swimming across the river Narmada. This could draw the attention of the local community towards the issue. Such an event might also infuse a spirit of adventure among the children and build a positive image for the school. However, crossing the river involved considerable risk as children's lives could be at stake. Police authorities and the Rotary club had offered to support the event. However the consent of the school management, and of the parents whose children would be participating in the river crossing, needed to be taken.
Swot Analysis of "Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A)" written by Mukund Dixit, Rajeev Sharma includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that School Children facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is backlash against globalization,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the School Children, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which School Children 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 Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of School Children
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 School Children
Strengths Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of School Children in Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that School Children 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of School Children in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– School Children has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. School Children 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.
Learning organization
- School Children 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 School Children is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– School Children 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 Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For School Children digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. School Children 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.
High brand equity
– School Children has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled School Children to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) 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
– School Children 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 Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the School Children 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– School Children is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Innovation driven organization
– School Children is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
School Children 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, School Children 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. School Children 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A), is just above the industry average. School Children 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, School Children is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, School Children has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at School Children 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 Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) 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 Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as School Children is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A), in the dynamic environment School Children has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. School Children has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, School Children 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of School Children, firm in the HBR case study Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of School Children is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. School Children needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help School Children to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) | 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 Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– School Children 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– School Children 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 Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help School Children to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for School Children 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help School Children to increase its market reach. School Children 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at School Children 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.
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. School Children can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 School Children in the consumer business. Now School Children 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, School Children 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.
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. School Children 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. School Children 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for School Children 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.
Loyalty marketing
– School Children 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.
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. School Children can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of School Children has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help School Children to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) case study. School Children can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents School Children with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
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 School Children.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that School Children is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– School Children 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. School Children can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Increasing wage structure of School Children
– 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 School Children.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– School Children 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, School Children 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 Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– School Children has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, School Children 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.
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. School Children can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for School Children 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– School Children 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
– School Children 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) 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 Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) 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 Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) 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 Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) 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 Chandrabala Modi Academy, Ankleshwar (A) 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 School Children needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.