Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change
As the 1998-99 school year began in the state of Kerala, India, state education officials were setting out to bring radical change to government schools. A new approach-designed to be child-friendly and to de-emphasize rote learning and textbook-based teacher lectures in favor of "guided learning and playful interaction"-would, in the words of Education Secretary K. Jayakumar, be no less than "an affirmation of the rights of the child." But as the extension of the so-called District Primary Education Program (DPEP) began to reach all school districts in Kerala, the approach was embroiled in controversy. The leader of the political opposition called for it to be halted. Newly-organized protest groups, charged that reform threatened to dilute education standards and create two tiers of Kerala students. It would fall to Mr. Jayakumar and other state officials to convince the public that the DPEP plan was best for the nearly three million school children of Kerala. Their task required officials to defend the concept of the program, even as they continued to oversee the details of its implementation. The approach they chose would leave some convinced that DPEP had been successfully institutionalized in Kerala, while some of the reform's strongest proponents believed that DPEP had been profoundly compromised. HKS Case Number 1573.0
Swot Analysis of "Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change" written by Howard Husock, Mark Moore, Gary Orren includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Kerala Dpep facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Conflict, Government, Leadership, Negotiations, Operations management, Social responsibility and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change casestudy better are - – wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions, 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 energy prices, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Kerala Dpep, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Kerala Dpep 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 Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Kerala Dpep
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 Kerala Dpep
Strengths Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Kerala Dpep in Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Kerala Dpep in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Kerala Dpep
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Kerala Dpep does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Kerala Dpep is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Kerala Dpep 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 Kerala Dpep in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Kerala Dpep is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change 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
– Kerala Dpep is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Kerala Dpep 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Kerala Dpep 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Kerala Dpep 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 Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Kerala Dpep has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Kerala Dpep to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Kerala Dpep 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 Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Kerala Dpep 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 Howard Husock, Mark Moore, Gary Orren 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.
Weaknesses Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change are -
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change 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 Kerala Dpep has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Kerala Dpep 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 to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Kerala Dpep is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Kerala Dpep, firm in the HBR case study Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Kerala Dpep 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Kerala Dpep products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Kerala Dpep needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Kerala Dpep 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Howard Husock, Mark Moore, Gary Orren suggests that, Kerala Dpep 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Kerala Dpep 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change 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 Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Kerala Dpep is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Kerala Dpep 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 - Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Opportunities Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change | 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 Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Kerala Dpep 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Kerala Dpep 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Kerala Dpep 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Kerala Dpep 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Kerala Dpep can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change 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. Kerala Dpep can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Kerala Dpep 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Kerala Dpep 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, Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Kerala Dpep can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Kerala Dpep 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 Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Kerala Dpep to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Kerala Dpep 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 Kerala Dpep 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, Kerala Dpep 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Kerala Dpep is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change 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.
Threats Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Kerala Dpep 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 wage structure of Kerala Dpep
– 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 Kerala Dpep.
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. Kerala Dpep 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 Kerala Dpep 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Kerala Dpep has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Kerala Dpep 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Kerala Dpep 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 Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change .
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.
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. Kerala Dpep 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Kerala Dpep 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.
Environmental challenges
– Kerala Dpep 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. Kerala Dpep can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
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 Kerala Dpep.
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 Kerala Dpep is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change 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 Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change 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 Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change 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 Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change 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 Implementing Education Reform in India: The Primary School Textbook Debate and Resistance to Change 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 Kerala Dpep needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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