Case Study – McKinley College SWOT Analysis

The talk of strategy contains various concepts that present alternatives for businesspeople. In addition, concepts about strategies are very much similar to the nature of strategy itself, they are developed in dynamic circumstances that requires modification if circumstances change. In the case of McKinley College, the strategy is also essential as the college is required to deal with unprecedented growth in the number of students, thus rising budget.
Concerning this matter, this paper will discuss three issues that McKinley College faces; the issues are SWOT analysis based on the current status of McKinley College and one based on its projected status in five years, assessment of strategic thinking employed by the college officials, and the recommendations on strategic planning and budgeting.
2. SWOT Analysis As the Tier 3 Institution, McKinley College has several strengths that shall help the institution to reach their objective.

The main strength is the institution capability in reaching the target of $50 million of capital campaign two years ago. This highlights that is capable of utilizing their resources to reach the target. However, McKinley presents the weaknesses as the institution shows incapability of controlling the capital projects. For example, the plan to build a classroom is finished with the used budget of $13 million from the planned $6 million. The main opportunity is the unprecedented growth in the number of enrolled students that reach 440 from 290 enrolled students in the previous years.
This rising is the great strength as it provides the institution with the rising revenue as well. In addition, McKinley also has opportunity from the booming of adult education program that grow into 1,200 from 250 students within the last five years.
3. Assessment of Strategic Thinking of College Officials By definition, strategic thinking is a broad and innovative way to think about the business in its daily basis as well as in the long term, with respect to a systematic and holistic view of the business environment.
In case of McKinley College, in addition to conducting the strategic planning that covers several activities like breaking-down goal into steps, designing how the steps may be implemented, or estimating consequences of each step; the institution should carry out the strategic thinking as well that that use intuition and creativity to formulate an integrated perspective, guided by a vision of where the institution like McKinley is heading for (Morrison, 1994).
In the case of McKinley, I see they lack of doing the strategic thinking since they still show heavy format of strategic planning. For example, in the budgeting processes, the chief financial officers, the presidents, and academic dean discusses the tuition and fee and salary increase without the estimation regarding the upcoming enrolled students and the shape of organizations to cope with the increase.
4. Recommendations
In order to take benefits of institution strengths and eliminate the weaknesses, McKinley College must elaborate the strategic thinking concept so they efforts in developing the future financial projection (strategic planning) are enriched. In the case of McKinley, therefore, the chief financial officer shall applies strategic thinking where they deal with the projected number of applicants/enrolled students in the upcoming years while designing the shape of organization to cope with the rising number of students.
Reference:
Morrison, James L. (1994). The Horizon. 2 (3), 3-4 Mintzberg, H. 1994, ‘The fall and rise of strategic planning’ Harvard Business Review, 107-114. Porter, Michael. (1996). What is Strategy. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved August 6, 2009 from my. execpc. com/~jpurtell/HBR-WhatisStrategy. pdf Olenick, A. J. & Olenick, P. R. (1991). A Nonprofit Organization Operating Manual. New York: The Foundation Center. Salamon, Lester M. (Ed. ). (1999). America’s nonprofit sector a primer, second edition. New York: The Foundation Center.