Case Study Description of Planning a Service-Learning Trip
Service-learning projects typically take place in the community adjacent to a school. However, service projects can also take place in distant communities to create different learning experiences. Creating a service-learning experience in a distant location requires planning to ensure a quality learning experience. The service project should relate to the academic goals of the course connected to the trip, while also leveraging the location's unique opportunities for learning. The logistics of planning and traveling with a group of students can appear daunting; however, administrative support for college trips can be of great help in creating a successful service-learning trip.
Swot Analysis of "Planning a Service-Learning Trip" written by Charles Winrich includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Learning Trip facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Planning a Service-Learning Trip case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, International business and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Planning a Service-Learning Trip casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions, there is backlash against globalization,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Planning a Service-Learning Trip
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Planning a Service-Learning Trip case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Learning Trip, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Learning Trip 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 Planning a Service-Learning Trip can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Planning a Service-Learning Trip case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Learning Trip
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 Learning Trip
Strengths Planning a Service-Learning Trip | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Learning Trip in Planning a Service-Learning Trip Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Learning Trip 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 Learning Trip
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Learning Trip does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Learning Trip has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Planning a Service-Learning Trip 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Planning a Service-Learning Trip 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Learning Trip is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Planning a Service-Learning Trip are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Learning organization
- Learning Trip 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 Learning Trip is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Planning a Service-Learning Trip Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Learning Trip 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
– Learning Trip is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Planning a Service-Learning Trip 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Learning Trip 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
– Learning Trip 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 Learning Trip in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Learning Trip 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 Planning a Service-Learning Trip HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Learning Trip has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Learning Trip 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.
Weaknesses Planning a Service-Learning Trip | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Planning a Service-Learning Trip are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Learning Trip 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Learning Trip 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Planning a Service-Learning Trip HBR case study mentions - Learning Trip 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Learning Trip, firm in the HBR case study Planning a Service-Learning Trip needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Planning a Service-Learning Trip 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 Learning Trip 's lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Learning Trip 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. Learning Trip 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Planning a Service-Learning Trip 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 Planning a Service-Learning Trip can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Learning Trip is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Charles Winrich suggests that, Learning Trip 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Learning Trip 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 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 Learning Trip supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Planning a Service-Learning Trip, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Learning Trip vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Learning Trip 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.
Opportunities Planning a Service-Learning Trip | 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 Planning a Service-Learning Trip are -
Buying journey improvements
– Learning Trip can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Planning a Service-Learning Trip 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Learning Trip 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
– Learning Trip 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Learning Trip 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 Learning Trip to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Learning Trip 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.
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. Learning Trip 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
– Learning Trip 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, Learning Trip is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Planning a Service-Learning Trip 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Learning Trip can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Learning Trip 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.
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. Learning Trip 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 Learning Trip has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Learning Trip to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Planning a Service-Learning Trip case study. Learning Trip can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Learning Trip 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.
Threats Planning a Service-Learning Trip External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Planning a Service-Learning Trip are -
Environmental challenges
– Learning Trip 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. Learning Trip can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
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. Learning Trip needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Learning Trip business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Learning Trip
– 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 Learning Trip.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Learning Trip 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Learning Trip 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 Planning a Service-Learning Trip .
Consumer confidence and its impact on Learning Trip 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Learning Trip 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Learning Trip 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 Learning Trip is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Planning a Service-Learning Trip, Learning Trip 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 .
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. Learning Trip will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Planning a Service-Learning Trip 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 Planning a Service-Learning Trip 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 Planning a Service-Learning Trip 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 Planning a Service-Learning Trip 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 Planning a Service-Learning Trip 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 Learning Trip needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
