Educational Development (EDUC) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Printing & Publishing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Educational Development (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Educational Development is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Educational Development
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Educational Development can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Educational Development, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Educational Development 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 Educational Development can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Educational Development
2. Improving business portfolio management of Educational Development
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Printing & Publishing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Educational Development
Strengths of Educational Development | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Educational Development are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Printing & Publishing industry
– Educational Development has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Educational Development to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Printing & Publishing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Educational Development to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Educational Development is present in almost all the verticals within the Printing & Publishing industry. This has provided Educational Development 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Educational Development is one of the leading players in the Printing & Publishing industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Innovation driven organization
– Educational Development is one of the most innovative firm in Printing & Publishing sector.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Educational Development in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Educational Development has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Educational Development to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Educational Development comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Printing & Publishing 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.
High brand equity
– Educational Development has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Educational Development to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Educational Development 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.
Training and development
– Educational Development 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.
Ability to lead change in Printing & Publishing
– Educational Development is one of the leading players in the Printing & Publishing industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Printing & Publishing industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Educational Development in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Educational Development has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Educational Development 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Educational Development 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.
Weaknesses of Educational Development | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Educational Development are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Printing & Publishing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Educational Development 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 Printing & Publishing industry.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Educational Development needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Printing & Publishing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Educational Development can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Educational Development is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Educational Development products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Educational Development needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
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 Educational Development supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Educational Development is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Educational Development vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Educational Development needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Educational Development 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Educational Development, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Printing & Publishing 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Educational Development 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 Printing & Publishing industry using digital technology.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Educational Development, in the dynamic environment of Printing & Publishing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Educational Development has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Educational Development is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Printing & Publishing industry, but Educational Development needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Educational Development to focus more on services in the Printing & Publishing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Educational Development is just above the Printing & Publishing 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.
Educational Development Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Educational Development are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Educational Development 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 Educational Development to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Educational Development in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Printing & Publishing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Educational Development can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Educational Development operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Printing & Publishing sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Educational Development 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Educational Development can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Educational Development can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Educational Development 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, Educational Development is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Educational Development can utilize new technology in the field of Printing & Publishing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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 Educational Development 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Educational Development has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Printing & Publishing industry. This can help Educational Development to build a more holistic ecosystem for Educational Development products in the Printing & Publishing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Printing & Publishing industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Educational Development in the Printing & Publishing industry. Now Educational Development can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Educational Development 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 Printing & Publishing industry.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Printing & Publishing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Educational Development can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Educational Development External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Educational Development are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Educational Development 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Educational Development may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Printing & Publishing 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Printing & Publishing industry are lowering. It can presents Educational Development with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Printing & Publishing sector.
Environmental challenges
– Educational Development 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. Educational Development can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Printing & Publishing industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Printing & Publishing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Educational Development can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Educational Development 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 Educational Development prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Educational Development in Printing & Publishing industry. The Printing & Publishing 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Educational Development 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 Printing & Publishing industry regulations.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Educational Development 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 Printing & Publishing industry and other sectors.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Educational Development 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 Printing & Publishing industry.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Educational Development has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Printing & Publishing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Educational Development needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Printing & Publishing 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Educational Development Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Educational Development 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 Educational Development 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 Educational Development 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 Educational Development 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 Educational Development needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
