SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Redhill Education Ltd (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Redhill Education Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Redhill Education Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Redhill Education Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Redhill Education Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Redhill Education Ltd 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 Redhill Education Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Redhill Education Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Redhill Education Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Schools sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Redhill Education Ltd
Strengths of Redhill Education Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Redhill Education Ltd are -
Innovation driven organization
– Redhill Education Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Schools sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Schools industry
– Redhill Education Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Redhill Education Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Schools industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Redhill Education Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Schools
– Redhill Education Ltd is one of the leading players in the Schools industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Schools industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Redhill Education Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Redhill Education Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Redhill Education Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Redhill Education Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Schools industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Redhill Education Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Redhill Education Ltd 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.
Analytics focus
– Redhill Education Ltd 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 Australia 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.
Organizational Resilience of Redhill Education Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Redhill Education Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Redhill Education Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Redhill Education Ltd 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Redhill Education Ltd is one of the leading players in the Schools industry in Australia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Australia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Strong track record of project management in the Schools industry
– Redhill Education Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Redhill Education Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Schools industry. This has provided Redhill Education Ltd 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.
Weaknesses of Redhill Education Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Redhill Education Ltd are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Redhill Education Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Schools industry, but Redhill Education Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Redhill Education Ltd to focus more on services in the Schools industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Lack of clear differentiation of Redhill Education Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Redhill Education Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Redhill Education Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Redhill Education Ltd to provide better information regarding Schools products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Redhill Education Ltd has high operating costs in the Schools industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Redhill Education Ltd lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Redhill Education Ltd 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Redhill Education Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Schools industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Redhill Education Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Redhill Education Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Schools industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Redhill Education Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Redhill Education Ltd 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Redhill Education Ltd 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Redhill Education Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Redhill Education Ltd don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
High dependence on Redhill Education Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Redhill Education Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Schools industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Redhill Education Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Redhill Education Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Redhill Education Ltd are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Redhill Education Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Redhill Education Ltd 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 Schools industry.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Redhill Education Ltd 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 Redhill Education Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Redhill Education Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Redhill Education Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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. Redhill Education Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Redhill Education Ltd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Schools industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Redhill Education Ltd 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 Redhill Education Ltd to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Redhill Education Ltd 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Redhill Education Ltd 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 Redhill Education Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Redhill Education Ltd 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Redhill Education Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Redhill Education Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Schools sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Redhill Education Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Schools industry. This can help Redhill Education Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Redhill Education Ltd products in the Schools industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Redhill Education Ltd 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.
Threats Redhill Education Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Redhill Education Ltd are -
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 Redhill Education Ltd.
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 Redhill Education Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Redhill Education Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Schools industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Redhill Education Ltd in the Schools sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Redhill Education Ltd
– 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 Redhill Education Ltd.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Redhill Education Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Schools industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Redhill Education Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Schools 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Redhill Education Ltd 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.
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.
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. Redhill Education Ltd 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Schools industry are lowering. It can presents Redhill Education Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Schools sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Redhill Education Ltd 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 Schools industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Redhill Education Ltd is facing in Schools sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Redhill Education Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Redhill Education Ltd 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 Redhill Education Ltd 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 Redhill Education Ltd 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 Redhill Education Ltd 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 Redhill Education Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.