Hinative Strategic Management
Essay by Hayden Kim • May 8, 2018 • Research Paper • 4,355 Words (18 Pages) • 928 Views
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HiNative
Strategic Audit
ADMN 703
Hyun Jun Kim
Hyun Seok Kim
Yindi Xu
University of New Hampshire
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction 3
2. Strategic Audit 4
2.1 External Environment 5
2.2 Internal Environment 6
2.3 Identity 7
2.4 Strategy Formulation 8
2.5 Strategy Implementation 9
2.6 Monitoring 10
3. Final Score 11
4. Conclusion 12
5. Appendix 13
5.1 External Environment 13
5.2 Internal Environment 14
5.3 Identity 15
5.4 Strategy Formulation 16
5.5 Strategy Implementation 17
5.6 Monitoring 18
1. Introduction
Interest and demand in foreign language learning has been consistently growing for the past 10 years, especially because of the impact of social media such as YouTube; people have a lot easier access to what is going on in other parts of the world, which sparked the interest in learning a foreign language in many people. The increased interest and demand in language learning combined with the development of technologies created a new wave of market, which is the global online language learning market. In addition, analysts have forecasted the global online language learning market to grow at a rate of 18.97% during the period of 2017-2021. Therefore, now is a critical time for HiNative’s success, and it is important for HiNative to identify opportunities and respond to them by developing and implementing better strategies and by constantly upgrading them.
This report was developed to analyze the current performance of HiNative on strategic management and to identify areas for improvement in each step of the strategic management. The information in this report was collected through the use of financial data, our extensive research on both the company and the industry, and the conversations we had with the company’s CMO, Yusuke Maji, throughout the process of the strategic audit. The following report contains tables that support the researched data. The tables were developed to further evaluate HiNative and identify areas for necessary improvement. The results of the data analyzed show that HiNative has been successful, and it is one of the most widely-known online language learning resources among the language learners. However, there are some areas of concern for building the future success of the company that should be addressed before further growth is achieved.
2. Strategic Audit
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Effective strategic management consists of 5 steps: (1) Environmental Scanning (External + Internal Environments), (2) Defining competitive identity, (3) Strategy Formulation, (4) Strategy Implementation, and (5) Strategy Execution. In this report, we rated each individual step of the strategic management, took the average of the five scores, and came up with the final score, which addresses HiNative’s performance in strategic management.
Each step of the strategic management is divided into categories. Each category is, again, divided into questions. Those questions are asked to address each category more effectively and efficiently. Each question is then, rated, and weighted, which gives each category a score from 1 to 10 (1 – lowest, 10 – highest). In addition, each category was given a color of either red, yellow, or green (1.00 to 4.99 – red, 5.00 to 7.99 – yellow, and 8.00 to 10.00 – green).
2.1. External Environment
Category | Questions | Score | Overall Assessment | Significant Comments |
Understanding of the global market | Does HiNative know which countries the app is used the most in? | 7.30 | Yellow | HiNative knows exactly in which countries the app is used the most. It follows the order of Japan, China, United States, Russia, South Korea, and the rest of the world. HiNative is also well aware in which countries they generate the most amount of revenue, which follows the order or China, Japan, United States, South Korea, Russia, and the rest of the world. However, its understanding of the trends of language learning seems limited. |
Does HiNative know which countries they generate the most amount of revenue in? | ||||
Does HiNative understand the trends of language learning in each of those countries? | ||||
Understanding of the nature of the language education industry | Is HiNative aware of the change in demand for foreign language study? | 8.50 | Green | HiNative is well aware of the fact that the interest in foreign language learning has been consistently growing for the past 10 years. HiNative also understands that what language is the most studied language in each country; English is the most studied languages in most countries where the app is used, except for the United States where Spanish is the most studied language. |
Does HiNative know what languages are in most demand in different countries? | ||||
Understanding of the impact of the development of technology | Is HiNative aware of the opportunities that the development of technology can bring? | 6.00 | Yellow | Although HiNative understands that the development of technologies such as the translation technology can bring both opportunities and threats to the company, its understanding seems vague. Therefore, there needs to be more attention in this area. |
Is HiNative aware of the threats that the development of technology can bring? | ||||
2.2. Internal Environment
Category | Questions | Score | Overall Assessment | Significant Comments |
Growth | Would HiNative be able to raise enough funding to continue its business? | 7.38 | Yellow | In 2006, HiNative was able to raise JPY 200 million of venture funding. Since then, HiNative has been consistently able to raise funding from investors. The number of users has been consistently growing as well. By the end of 2016, they had 540,000 users, and by the end of 2017, they had 2.5 million users. However, HiNative is relying on two primary ways of generating revenue, which are advertisements and premium fees. |
Has HiNative been able to consistently generate revenue? | ||||
Is the number of users consistently growing? | ||||
Does HiNative have various ways of generating revenue? | ||||
Strengths and weaknesses | Does HiNative have competitive advantages over other languages learning resources? | 6.00 | Yellow | HiNative is ranked top 11 among all language learning apps, and top 2 among those which have the Q&A type platform. However, HiNative does not have legal barriers such as a patent to protect its Q&A type platform because it is too costly to get a patent and it is virtually impossible to prevent all language learning apps from adopting it. |
Does HiNative have patents or any legal barriers that can help them to protect their Q&A type platform? | ||||
Openness to Innovation | Is HiNative willing to expand to offline services? | 8.92 | Green | Although HiNative is interested in expanding into the offline market and offering such services in the future, its current focus is on expanding its online user base. Therefore, it does have any specific plans as to what kind of offline services it wants to offer. It is quite worried about the costs aspect of it as well. HiNative is a young startup company; therefore, they are extremely open to new ideas, and employees are always encouraged to come up with them. |
Are the employees encouraged to come up with new ideas? | ||||
2.3. Identity
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