Ser Educa ON (SEER3) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Schools
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ser Educa ON (Brazil)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ser Educa ON is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ser Educa ON can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ser Educa ON, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ser Educa ON 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 Ser Educa ON can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ser Educa ON
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ser Educa ON
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Brazil
4. Making a Schools sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ser Educa ON
Strengths of Ser Educa ON | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ser Educa ON are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Ser Educa ON comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Schools 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ser Educa ON in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Ser Educa ON has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ser Educa ON to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Ser Educa ON has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Ser Educa ON staying ahead in the Schools industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Ser Educa ON 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ser Educa ON is one of the leading players in the Schools industry in Brazil. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Brazil. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Analytics focus
– Ser Educa ON 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 Schools industry. The technology infrastructure of Brazil is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Ser Educa ON has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Ser Educa ON 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.
Training and development
– Ser Educa ON has one of the best training and development program in Services industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ser Educa ON 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.
Organizational Resilience of Ser Educa ON
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Ser Educa ON does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Ser Educa ON has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ser Educa ON to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Ser Educa ON 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 Ser Educa ON is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ser Educa ON emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Ser Educa ON | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ser Educa ON are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Ser Educa ON is just above the Schools industry average. It 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ser Educa ON has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Schools industry over the last five years. Ser Educa ON 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Schools industry, Ser Educa ON 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 Ser Educa ON is one of the leading players in the Schools industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Schools industry in last five years.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Ser Educa ON needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Schools industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Ser Educa ON can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ser Educa ON is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Ser Educa ON has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Schools industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Ser Educa ON, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Schools industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Schools industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Brazil, Ser Educa ON 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 Schools industry.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Ser Educa ON 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 Schools industry using digital technology.
Need for greater diversity
– Ser Educa ON 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Ser Educa ON, in the dynamic environment of Schools industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Ser Educa ON has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Ser Educa ON Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ser Educa ON are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Schools industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Ser Educa ON in the Schools industry. Now Ser Educa ON can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Manufacturing automation
– Ser Educa ON can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Schools sector. 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ser Educa ON 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Ser Educa ON 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.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Ser Educa ON to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ser Educa ON 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ser Educa ON has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Schools sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Ser Educa ON to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ser Educa ON to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ser Educa ON is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Ser Educa ON can utilize new technology in the field of Schools industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Schools industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Ser Educa ON 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
– Ser Educa ON 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Schools industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Ser Educa ON 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. Ser Educa ON 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Ser Educa ON can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ser Educa ON operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Schools sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– Ser Educa ON can develop new processes and procedures in Schools 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 Ser Educa ON External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ser Educa ON are -
Environmental challenges
– Ser Educa ON 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. Ser Educa ON can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Schools industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Schools industry are lowering. It can presents Ser Educa ON with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Schools sector.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Ser Educa ON in the Schools sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Ser Educa ON business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Ser Educa ON
– 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 Ser Educa ON.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Ser Educa ON may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Schools sector.
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. Ser Educa ON 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
– Ser Educa ON 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
– Ser Educa ON 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 Schools industry regulations.
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.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ser Educa ON in Schools industry. The Schools 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Schools industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Ser Educa ON can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ser Educa ON Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ser Educa ON 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 Ser Educa ON 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 Ser Educa ON 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 Ser Educa ON 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 Ser Educa ON needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.