SWOT

In preparation for the EOL Steering Committee meeting to be held in late April, each of the EOL Component Leaders, of whom I am one, has been tasked to draft a SWOT analysis of his/her component and jointly work on a SWOT analysis for the entire EOL. Here is a presentation of what is involved. http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/swot/. My draft is due at the end of March!!!!!!
While my first reaction to this assignment was a groan, on reflection I realize that it's a worthwhile exercise for BHL even if the EOL SC had not asked for it. Therefore, I am sending to you my first draft of thoughts. I do not know at this point if we will have sufficient time to cover this during our March 22 meeting. I am asking you for any suggestions. At this point, just brief bullets are what is needed. Later stages I can aggregate and reformulate. I am also going to post this on the BHL Wikie and invite BHL staff to contribute also.

- tgarnett Mar 14, 2010(Note: the wording under S,W,O,T below and before the enumerated list derives from the biz url in the note above. The wording is to give you and idea of what is meant. It's language derived from for-profit businesses)

BHL SWOT Analysis

First cut
March 14, 2010


Strengths
A firm's strengths are its resources and capabilities that can be used as a basis for developing a competitive advantage. Examples of such strengths include:

• patents
• strong brand names
• good reputation among customers
• cost advantages from proprietary know-how
• exclusive access to high grade natural resources
• favorable access to distribution networks

1. Clear mission
2. Clear niche – Goldilocks – not too much, not too little.
3. Committed institutions.
4. Broad skill sets: system developers; librarians; metadata experts; grant writers; public facing library staff; administrators at multiple levels.
5. Developed in collaboration with major biodiversity projects and biodiversity informatics efforts.
6. Has attracted good reputation from outside the biodiversity community as a well-run project and well-designed system. This makes fund-raising easier. ALCTS award; DuraCloud Pilot; numerous invitations from library and open source community to address them.
7. Culture of self-organizing among the various BHL staff/players
- chrisfreeland Mar 15, 20108. Content, content, content. Our primary resource is the content we've digitized and our intimate knowledge of its specialized use.
- ConnieR Mar 19, 2010 (on behalf of the BHL Staff group) Documenting the policies and procedures which need to be specific to the operation of any library.


Weaknesses
The absence of certain strengths may be viewed as a weakness. For example, each of the following may be considered weaknesses:

• lack of patent protection
• a weak brand name
• poor reputation among customers
• high cost structure
• lack of access to the best natural resources
• lack of access to key distribution channel

In some cases, a weakness may be the flip side of a strength. Take the case in which a firm has a large amount of manufacturing capacity. While this capacity may be considered a strength that competitors do not share, it also may be a considered a weakness if the large investment in manufacturing capacity prevents the firm from reacting quickly to changes in the strategic environment.

1. Geographically dispersed – makes F2F communication, which is sometimes necessary, difficult.
2. Composed of multiple administratively separate member organizations with widely varying levels of commitment.
3. Lack of some skill sets: ipr expertise.
4. Funding is grant-base and “donated” by member institutions. This makes long-range planning difficult.
5. Unclear management/admin structure – this is a flip of strength no. 7.
6. Users are not likely to provide direct funding.
- chrisfreeland Mar 15, 20107. Lack of clear revenue stream.
- ConnieR Mar 18, 2010 (on behalf of the BHL Staff group) Digital preservation plan is not clearly delineated and secure.
- ConnieR Mar 18, 2010 (on behalf of the BHL Staff group)Staff resources are very limited (for development and day to day work).
- ConnieR Mar 18, 2010 (on behalf of the BHL Staff group) Communication needs improvement. Regular updates, priorities, from all groups need to go beyond the wiki.
- ConnieR Mar 19, 2010 (on behalf of the BHL Staff group) Policies and procedures are not fully documented.



Opportunities
The external environmental analysis may reveal certain new opportunities for profit and growth. Some examples of such opportunities include:

• an unfulfilled customer need
• arrival of new technologies
• loosening of regulations
• removal of international trade barriers

1. Biodiversity literature is hard to find and in use for current research – clear and documented need we satisfy.
2. Other projects/countries like the idea and want to get in on it. Hence, we should be able to share development and storage costs.
3. Potential for improved technologies in data mining, scanning, and OCR software may enhance the value of the corpus based on the work of other projects.
4. Opportunity to piggyback on national digitizing projects at little or no cost.
5. Can partner with leading projects in biodiversity e.g. ??, publishing e.g. PLoS, BioOne, library e.g. California Digital Library, Europeana. This increases content and services and decreases costs.
6. Able to attract qualified staff.
7. User base, as usual, wants more, more, more……
- ConnieR Mar 19, 2010 (on behalf of the BHL Staff group) To thoughtfully create policies and procedures specific to a multi-institutional, multi-national digital library which could become an international standard.
- cgiannoni Mar 21, 2010Re-invigorate/develop a strong communications plan (all sorts of great examples from Connie's recent email)



Threats
Changes in the external environmental also may present threats to the firm. Some examples of such threats include:

• shifts in consumer tastes away from the firm's products
• emergence of substitute products
• new regulations
• increased trade barriers

1. Unexpected shifts in intellectual property law might hurt us or make others less willing to collaborate.
2. Google book settlement may kill opportunities to digitize orphan works and make some publishers less likely to give BHL permission.
3. Research habits/patterns could change and scientists could give up on the older literature.
4. Financial pressures at some member institutions may force withdrawal from the BHL; thus withdrawal of support and resources.
5. Institutional stasis/inattention could result in loss/decay of the corpus.
- chrisfreeland Mar 15, 20106. Loss of funding to sustain even minimal maintenance on software and systems.
- chrisfreeland Mar 15, 20107. Hathi Trust or other open access digital library could ingest our materials provide services that make BHL obsolete.
- ConnieR Mar 18, 2010 (on behalf of the BHL Staff group) Digital preservation plan is not clearly delineated and secure.
- cgiannoni Mar 21, 2010Technology may lag behind user expectations. BHL needs to attract and retain new generations of researchers.