SWOT Analysis Report: Mobile Optimized Platform at Holmes Institute

This report presents a SWOT analysis of Holmes Institute's mobile optimized platform, designed to provide students, academics, and employees with access to university services via smartphones and tablets. The analysis examines the institute's strengths, including its strong reputation in blended learning and extensive mobile infrastructure. Weaknesses include insufficient IT personnel and potential wireless system limitations. Opportunities include the growing mobile computing market and the potential for innovative learning activities. Threats involve increasing competition and challenges in anticipating future device access. The report provides short, mid, and long-term goals for the platform's development and integration, including data analytics and vendor support, emphasizing the need for effective IT governance and interoperability.

Running head: SWOT ANALYSIS 1
SWOT Analysis Holmes Institute
Name:
Institution Affiliation:

SWOT ANALYSIS 2
Figure 1. SWOT analysis diagram
SWOT Analysis
Organization: Holmes University Date:28/9/ 2017
Description of current/new ICT service:
This is in regards to the mobile optimized platform for the students, academics as well as the
professional’s employees to be able to access the University services as well as the resources from
the smartphones, tablets or any other mobile devices (Basole & Karla, 2011). To be in a position to
accompany on this platform, the university would develop a mobile based application version of
the interface. The interface would be able to a convenient as well as unified entry point to the
professionals’ development, learning platforms, collaboration, as well as administrative facilities
for the staff as well as the students who would be accessing the application at the campus and
outside the University premises.
STRENGTHS
1. Holmes University
enjoys strong reputation
as being both a leader
and an innovator when it
comes to blended
learning as well as the
distance education
programs. Many of the
students in the
organization usually
combine study with
work as well as engaging
to other responsibilities.
2. The institution has an
extensive mobile
infrastructure and they
have been providing
online education
programs for some time
now, with the use of the
third party programs
such as the WordPress as
well as the YouTube.
WEAKNESSES
1. Holmes University does not have adequate information
technology personnel who devote a team exclusively
towards the development as well as maintenance of any
new information system particularly for the long term.
2. Many of the mobile devices are much access to the
students but on the part of the University they have
insufficient infrastructure to be able to support the various
types of learning which available through the use of the
mobile technology (Dalmasso, Datta, Bonnet, C., &
Nikaein, 2013).
3. The large number of the users who are using their mobile
devices to complete their tasks they might overwhelm on
the wireless system since it is also been utilized by those
using the desktop which would cause delay and this would
force the university to add extra capacity.
4. The use of the online information technologies as well as
the gateways are aging and convoluted. There could arise
situation of overlapping between this new system and the
old system the university was utilizing.

SWOT ANALYSIS 3
These have been
incorporated in their
teaching as well as
research programs. This
has reduced on the
prospective of training
the academic and the
information technology
staff.
3. The workers in the
institution are engaged
actively when it comes
to the aspect research M-
Learning innovations as
well as best practices.
The institution has been
running m-Learning for
a couple of years.
4. Holmes University
library they have already
developed on their own
mobile app ahead the
libraries of other
University in Australia.
Their database as well as
other resources which
they have subscribed
they have the mobile
applications which are
inbuilt and their
functionality could be
integrated into the new
mobile interfaces.
5. Holmes institutions their
large contingence of the
distance education
students as well as their
geographical dispersion
of the students along
with the researchers has
seen the use of the web
as their major channel
which has been used for
communication with the
institution.

SWOT ANALYSIS 4
OPPORTUNITIES
1. The computing market
has been focused
towards the mobile
computing technology of
which has seen many
tablets as well as the
netbooks have been
marked a lot to the
students that they are
providing functionality,
price savings as well as
portability which is
compared to the use of
the traditional laptops as
well as the desktops
(Wasserman, 2010). ‘
2. The use of the mobile
device usually raises the
prospect for more
innovative learning as
well as assessment
activities for each and
every student
particularly the ones for
the distance education
students along with the
ones who are engaged in
the workplace type of
learning.
3. Both the staff and the
students all across the
campuses and other
locations could
collaborate through use
of the video
conferencing as well as
other kind of
collaborative
applications which are
THREATS
1. The rate in which the mobile computing has taken the
market could mean it is more difficult to anticipating the
devices with which the students as well as staff could
access on the network in future.
2. There is increase in competition especially in the distance
learning education more so from the overseas University
and the institutions which are within the Australia since
the student market is more discerning and demanding in
terms of the quality of the experiences of the student.
3. In case the applications and the services which are
provided by vendors and the outside organization are
incorporated in to the platform of this institutions, the
vendors could make their interface and application to have
an impact in the functionality of Holmes institution
platform (Charland & Leroux, 2011).
4. There is no guarantee for the privacy especially to the
external application which are integrated into the platforms
of the organization. Holmes University need to rely on the
staff and the student to be able to create their own accounts
as well as manage their privacy setting for these kind of
services.
5. The institution may not assume that each and every student
will have an access to these devices. There is no guarantee
that every students will have a smartphone or even have an
access to the high speed wireless networks especially all
the time.

SWOT ANALYSIS 5
included in platform.
4. The aspects of the
consumerisation of the
place of work
technology such as bring
your own device trend
could mean that the
students as well as many
of the other students
could prefer the use of
their own devices as
compared to the devices
which are supplied by
the university.
Summary and Recommendations:
The aspect of mobility could present the challenges as well as opportunities for the universities all
across the world, which will extend the reach of Holmes institutions and at the time could
transform the expectations which the students as well as the staff have on their relationship with the
providers of education as well as employers. Over a decade Holmes University has been exploring
the mobility effect to the education from various angles through use of the M-learning project.
Through the establishment of the mobile optimized platform which would be a single entry point
for the resources and services in the University as well as making that platform much available as
the mobile application. Holmes could achieve their strategic objective which is to strengthen their
position as the leader in regards to the flexibility and blended learning along with teaching with a
given focus to the professional education.
The mobile interface will be managed in a manner that is agile as well as responsive in regards to
the emergency of new technologies and data analytics along with sustainable design for delivery of
the services.
Short term goals (Now)
The Liaison and the Enterprise Architecture would be the oversight during the initial planning and
the research period. They would also own to any complexity of the aspects in relation to the
integration of any new system within the university current network as well as the need of aligning
on the development of the system within the long term goals (Raj & Tolety, 2012). There would be
involvement of the initial investigation as well as survey which would be done from the various
division and the sections of the Institution especially the division of student learning.
There would also be application of the data analytics which would be applied to be able to measure
how many of the student as well as the staff who are accessing the sites with the use of their mobile

SWOT ANALYSIS 6
devices at present.
Midterm (The next 12 months)
There are various pilot programs which would be carried out within the medium term. Some of
these would be tendering as well as negotiation process. After the research as well as the survey of
the students and the survey has been done, the enterprise architect who are responsible for the
project will need to investigate offerings of different external vendors as well as level support they
are in position of extending the initial implementation and hence the maintenance of the system
over lifetime. In this stage the staff would also be required to configure as well as install the
software, the workers would develop a mobile hub to be able to promote as well as support the
service.
When it comes to this medium term, there will be a creation of the beta version of this interface
application which would mobilize less demand contents.
Long terms (The next 3 to 5 years)
The long term goal the success of this project would depend on the effectiveness of the university
wide information technology governance especially in the maintenance of the consistent data
storage as well as policies all across the department and division to enable all the system
interoperable within the platform of the mobile device (Charland & Leroux, 2011). The vital task
which would be done over the next three to five years would be the integration of the interact to the
mobile platform with the research which has been done by the other institutions servicing as the
models. The integration would be done only to limited number of subjects for the first year of
project and these pilots are also intended to continue. Moreover, there would be learning of the
analytic approach which will be implemented to enable the staff have an actionable data for
undertaking the evaluation to be able to take up on the applications, especially where it has been
used equally by all the groups.

SWOT ANALYSIS 7
References
Basole, R. C., & Karla, J. (2011). On the evolution of mobile platform ecosystem structure
and strategy. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 3(5), 313.
Charland, A., & Leroux, B. (2011). Mobile application development: web vs. native.
Communications of the ACM, 54(5), 49-53.
Dalmasso, I., Datta, S. K., Bonnet, C., & Nikaein, N. (2013, July). Survey, comparison and
evaluation of cross platform mobile application development tools. In Wireless
Communications and Mobile Computing Conference (IWCMC), 2013 9th
International (pp. 323-328). IEEE.
Raj, C. R., & Tolety, S. B. (2012, December). A study on approaches to build cross-platform
mobile applications and criteria to select appropriate approach. In India Conference
(INDICON), 2012 Annual IEEE (pp. 625-629). IEEE.
Wasserman, A. I. (2010, November). Software engineering issues for mobile application
development. In Proceedings of the FSE/SDP workshop on Future of software
engineering research (pp. 397-400). ACM.