Educational Resources & Tech Tools 08/31/2019

• Three Key Groups Too Often Left Out of Diversity Assessments of Campus Climates - Higher Education

  • a crappy climate does not enhance the likelihood that students from diverse backgrounds will enroll, achieve and graduate.
  • Too often left out of the litany of surveys, interviews and town halls designed to learn about campus climate – and, ultimately, the decision-making process – are the people who have the true on-the-ground understanding of what is really taking place.
  • They are the custodians, food service employees and groundskeepers who are engaged in more invisible work within our organizations. These individuals are key to any meaningful, intentional and honest assessment of what is really occurring on our campuses.
  • we found these three groups are absolutely central to conversations on student success. Namely, because they serve as the primary educators (yes, “educators”) that provide validation for low-income, nontraditional and students of color who often do not receive these messages of support from their own faculty or administrators.

  • Such employees within our organizations often come from the same communities as students of color and are often people of color themselves, whereas students’ faculty members overwhelmingly are not. While the voices of these key groups are needed in conversations on student success. so, too, are they needed for discussions of campus climate. And here is why.

     

    They have a true pulse for the climate and culture of the campus. Quite often, they are among the first to hear, see or say that something has gone wrong. They are also often the ones tasked with pulling down fliers and posters from extremist groups that are designed to spread hate, bias and fear.

  • they often have deep and authentic relationships with students, particularly those who are from the most marginalized backgrounds.
  • hey can provide deep insight into the climate experienced by marginalized communities – as they are too often the recipients of subtle slights, insults and sharpness from many faculty, staff and administrators who see them as second-class citizens.

• White Teachers Need to See Color. Here's Why. - WeAreTeachers

  tags: diversity inclusion DEI whiteness white privilege

  • Every person of color has a similar story where an elder takes time to talk about the way their physical appearance is interpreted by white people. Do white people talk about how to make themselves appear more culturally aware in interviews?
  • Every time a white teacher says, “I don’t see color,” you abandon a child in an educational void by refusing to recognize them for who they are. Additionally you fail to prepare them to enter a world who will see their color as a factor to their success and abilities.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Educational Resources & Tech Tools 08/27/2019

• VRIO framework explained | SMI

  • VRIO framework

     

    is the tool used to analyze firm’s internal resources and capabilities to find out if they can be a source of sustained competitive advantage.

     

     

         

     

  • the author identified four attributes that firm’s resources must possess in order to become a source of sustained competitive advantage. According to him, the resources must be valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable and non-substitutable.
  • VRIO analysis stands for four questions that ask if a resource is: valuable? rare? costly to imitate? And is a firm organized to capture the value of the resources? A resource or capability that meets all four requirements can bring sustained competitive advantage for the company.
  • The first question of the framework asks if a resource adds value by enabling a firm to exploit opportunities or defend against threats. If the answer is yes, then a resource is considered valuable. Resources are also valuable if they help organizations to increase the perceived customer value.
  • Resources that can only be acquired by one or very few companies are considered rare. Rare and valuable resources grant temporary competitive advantage.

  • A firm that has valuable, rare and costly to imitate resources can (but not necessarily will) achieve sustained competitive advantage. Barney has identified three reasons why resources can be hard to imitate:

     
     
    • Historical conditions. Resources that were developed due to historical events or over a long period usually are costly to imitate.
     
    • Causal ambiguity. Companies can’t identify the particular resources that are the cause of competitive advantage.
     
    • Social Complexity. The resources and capabilities that are based on company’s culture or interpersonal relationships.
  • The resources itself do not confer any advantage for a company if it’s not organized to capture the value from them. A firm must organize its management systems, processes, policies, organizational structure and culture to be able to fully realize the potential of its valuable, rare and costly to imitate resources and capabilities. Only then the companies can achieve sustained competitive advantage.
  • An easy way to identify such resources is to look at the value chain and SWOT analyses. Value chain analysis identifies the most valuable activities, which are the source of cost or differentiation advantage.

  • If you still struggle finding valuable resources, you can identify them by asking the following questions:

     
     
    • Which activities lower the cost of production without decreasing perceived customer value?
     
    • Which activities increase product or service differentiation and perceived customer value?
     
    • Have your company won an award or been recognized as the best in something? (most innovative, best employer, highest customer retention or best exporter)
     
    • Do you have an access to scarce raw materials or hard to get in distribution channels?
     
    • Do you have special relationship with your suppliers? Such as tightly integrated order and distribution system powered by unique software?
     
    • Do you have employees with unique skills and capabilities?
     
    • Do you have brand reputation for quality, innovation, customer service?
     
    • Do you do perform any tasks better than your competitors do? (Benchmarking is useful here)
     
    • Does your company hold any other strengths compared to rivals?

  • Step 2. Find out if your company is organized to exploit these resources

     

    Following questions might be helpful:

     
     
    • Does your company has an effective strategic management process in organization?
     
    • Are there effective motivation and reward systems in place?
     
    • Does your company’s culture reward innovative ideas?
     
    • Is an organizational structure designed to use a resource?
     
    • Are there excellent management and control systems?

  • Step 3. Protect the resources

     

    When you identified a resource or capability that has all 4 VRIO attributes, you should protect it using all possible means.

  • Step 4. Constantly review VRIO resources and capabilities

     

    The value of the resources changes over time and they must be reviewed constantly to find out if they are as valuable as they once were.

  • Google’s ability to manage their people effectively is a source of both differentiation and cost advantages. Unlike other companies, which rely on trust and relationship in people management, Google uses data about its employees to manage them. This capability allows making correct (data based) decisions about which people to hire and the best way to use their skills.

• The Structure of a Good SWOT - How to do it Right | SMI

  tags: strategy and analytics swot

  • SWOT

     

    is a framework that allows managers to synthesize insights obtained from an internal analysis of the company’s strengths and weaknesses with those from an analysis of external opportunities and threats

  • SWOT is an acronym which stands for:

     

     

     Strengths: factors that give an edge for the company over its competitors.
     Weaknesses: factors that can be harmful if used against the firm by its competitors.
     Opportunities: favorable situations which can bring a competitive advantage.
     Threats: unfavorable situations which can negatively affect the business.

  • Strengths and weaknesses are internal to the company and can be directly managed by it, while the opportunities and threats are external and the company can only anticipate and react to them.

  • The aim of swot is to identify the strengths and weaknesses that are relevant in meeting opportunities and threats in particular situation. ^[4]

     

         

     

  • When looking for strengths, ask what do you do better or have more valuable than your competitors have? In case of the weaknesses, ask what could you improve and at least catch up with your competitors?
  • Clear definition. Very often factors which are described too broadly may fit both strengths and weaknesses.
  • Benchmarking. The key emphasize in doing swot is to identify the factors that are the strengths or weaknesses in comparison to the competitors.
  • VRIO framework. A resource can be seen as a strength if it exhibits VRIO (valuable, rare and cannot be imitated) framework characteristics. Otherwise, it doesn’t provide any strategic advantage for the company.
  • Opportunities and threats are the external uncontrollable factors that usually appear or arise due to the changes in the macro environment, industry or comp
  • etitors’ actions.

  • PESTEL. PEST or PESTEL analysis represents all the major external forces (political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal) affecting the company so it’s the best place to look for the existing or new opportunities and threats.

     

  • The most visible opportunities and threats appear during the market changes.

  • Guidelines for successful SWOT

     
  • Factors have to be identified relative to the competitors
  • Factors should be action orientated.
  • At the most, swot is considered to be only a reference to further analysis as it has too many limitations and cannot be used alone in the situation analysis.

  • Strengths and weaknesses are evaluated on 3 categories:

     
     
    • Importance. Importance shows how important a strength or a weakness is for the organization in its industry as some strengths (weaknesses) might be more important than others.
  • A number from 0.01 (not important) to 1.0 (very important) should be assigned to each strength and weakness. The sum of all weights should equal 1.0 (including strengths and weaknesses).
  • • Rating. A score from 1 to 3 is given to each factor to indicate whether it is a major (3) or a minor (1) strength for the company. The same rating should be assigned to the weaknesses where 1 would mean a minor weakness and 3 a major weakness.
     
    • Score. Score is a result of importance multiplied by rating. It allows prioritizing the strengths and weaknesses. You should rely on your most important strengths and try to convert or defend your weakest parts of the organization.

  • Opportunities and threats are prioritized slightly differently than strengths and weaknesses. Their evaluation includes:

     
     
    • Importance. It shows to what extent the external factor might impact the business. Again, the numbers from 0.01 (no impact) to 1.0 (very high impact) should be assigned to each item. The sum of all weights should equal 1.0 (including opportunities and threats).
     
    • Probability. Probability of occurrence is showing how likely the opportunity or threat will have any impact on business. It should be rated from 1 (low probability) to 3 (high probability).
     
    • Score. Importance multiplied by probability will give a score by which you’ll be able to prioritize opportunities and threats. Pay attention to the factors having the highest score and ignore the factors that will not likely affect your business.

• Porter's Five Forces | SMI

  tags: strategy and analytics porter

  • Porter’s five forces model

     

    is an analysis tool that uses five industry forces to determine the intensity of competition in an industry and its profitability level.

    ^[1] 

     

         

     

  • The stronger competitive forces in the industry are the less profitable it is.
  • This force determines how easy (or not) it is to enter a particular industry. If an industry is profitable and there are few barriers to enter, rivalry soon intensifies. When more organizations compete for the same market share, profits start to fall.
  • Strong bargaining power allows suppliers to sell higher priced or low quality raw materials to their buyers. This directly affects the buying firms’ profits because it has to pay more for materials
  • Buyers have the power to demand lower price or higher product quality from industry producers when their bargaining power is strong. Lower price means lower revenues for the producer, while higher quality products usually raise production costs. Both scenarios result in lower profits for producers.
  • Threat of substitutes. This force is especially threatening when buyers can easily find substitute products with attractive prices or better quality and when buyers can switch from one product or service to another with little cost.

  • In competitive industry, firms have to compete aggressively for a market share, which results in low profits. Rivalry among competitors is intense when:

     
     
    • There are many competitors;
     
    • Exit barriers are high;
     
    • Industry of growth is slow or negative;
     
    • Products are not differentiated and can be easily substituted;
     
    • Competitors are of equal size;
     
    • Low customer loyalty.
  • complements. Complements increase the demand of the primary product with which they are used, thus, increasing firm’s and industry’s profit potential. For example, iTunes was created to complement iPod and added value for both products.
  • • Step 1. Gather the information on each of the five forces
     
    • Step 2. Analyze the results and display them on a diagram
     
    • Step 3. Formulate strategies based on the conclusions
  • After gathering all the information, you should analyze it and determine how each force is affecting an industry. For example, if there are many companies of equal size operating in the slow growth industry, it means that rivalry between existing companies is strong.
  • Step 3. Formulate strategies based on the conclusions. At this stage, managers should formulate firm’s strategies using the results of the analysis For example, if it is hard to achieve economies of scale in the market, the company should pursue cost leadership strategy. Product development strategy should be used if the current market growth is slow and the market is saturated.

• PEST & PESTEL Analysis | SMI

  tags: pest strategy and analytics

  • PEST or PESTEL analysis is a simple and effective tool used in situation analysis to identify the key external (macro environment level) forces that might affect an organization.
  • PEST analysis is also done to assess the potential of a new market. The general rule is that the more negative forces are affecting that market the harder it is to do business in it.

  • The process of carrying out PEST analysis should involve as many managers as possible to get the best results. It includes the following steps:

     
     
    • Step 1. Gathering information about political, economic, social and technological changes + any other factor(s).
     
    • Step 2. Identifying which of the PEST factors represent opportunities or threats.
  • it is essential to identify which PEST factors represent the opportunities or threats for an organization and list only those factors in PEST analysis. This allows focusing on the most important changes that might have an impact on the company.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.