Impact of COVID-19 on McGraw-Hill Education: A Business Report

This report examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on McGraw-Hill Education, a company providing educational resources. The report begins with an overview of the company's operations, including a SWOT analysis. It then details the challenges faced, such as technological issues, limited access to technology, and poor connectivity, which disrupted online learning. The report explores strategic solutions implemented by the company, including site improvements and the provision of physical books. Part B of the report focuses on skills development, including communication, ICT, and analytical skills, and the learning styles used to develop these skills. The report highlights the importance of these skills for career success. References are provided at the end of each section.

Report and Reflection

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
PART A...........................................................................................................................................3
Summary of the business case study...........................................................................................3
Exploration of the business problem ..........................................................................................5
Potential strategic solutions.........................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................7
PART B............................................................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................12
........................................................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Educational sector refers to the education system which compresses of teachers,
professors, students, lectures, universities, school and so on. The educational sector contributes
to a great extent in the up gradation and growth of economy. Due to COVID- 19, like any other
sector this sector is also facing various issues. All the educational institutions are closed. The
classes are holding at zoom or other video calling app, students are facing problems as the
colleges are not able to hold any of their exam. The same problems was faced by a company,
McGraw- Hill Education. The company was founded in the year 1888 by James H McGraw and
John A. Hill. McGraw- Hill education is a company which has engaged itself in providing the
customized students lectures, notes, software to the students till pre classes to post graduates.
The expansion of the company is in around 80 countries with the total employees of 5,000
globally (Dwivedi and et al., 2020).
This report discusses about the problem which is faced by the company during the period
of COVID- 19 and the solutions which the company apply to surmounted these problems and
issues. The report also discusses about skills development in an individual for gain success in his
career.
PART A
Summary of the business case study
The McGraw- Hill education company is an organisation which is engaged in the
business of providing the necessary notes to the students, customised topic related study
material, services, software from pre-k classes to post graduates students. The company is very
old in this particular sector with the expansion of 80 more countries in the world. McGraw- Hill
education company is a company which operates in educational sector which helps the students
in getting educational help by providing the necessary study materials to them (Keswani and et
al., 2020).
SWOT analysis of company
Strength
 The company has the strong
background in providing the good study
materials and publication since their
Weakness
 The companies major concentration is
at the educational sector only.
 McGraw- Hill has the excessive

establishment.
 The company is technological advance
as it focuses upon providing the
teaching services online to the world
wide students.
 The operations of the company is in
more than 80 countries.
 The company also has the strong
network.
 The study materials which the company
provides to their students are very
much reliable.
dependence upon American market.
 The prices which the company charges
is very high which may not get afford
by developing countries.
Opportunities
 The company get more commercial by
selling their notes or study material in
the physical market for growth and
profit.
 The company has the opportunities in
getting its business expand in the other
continents like Europe and Asia.
 Also the company can grab the
opportunity for expanding itself at the
developing countries also. These
countries can prove to be a great place
for growth and revenue.
Threats
 The leakage or illegal supply for the
company's notes, lectures, publication
can prove to be an issue for company.
 The competitors are also work as threat
for this particular company.
 The good content or publications from
the other local competitors can reduce
the sales and customer base for the
company (Lackie and et al., 2020).
But as COVID- 19 got spread through out the world the lock down get implemented in the all
countries. Due to that the production and operational activities of all the institutions and factories
got closed down. Likewise the educational institutions also have to shut down. Due to the
shutting down of educational institutions the businesses for the companies which are engaged in
the educational business also has to shut down. The education of all students were went on a

pause for some particular period of time which causes the break into the income for the
company.
Exploration of the business problem
The company, McGraw- the hill has the educational company goes through the various
problems due to the world Pandemic- COVID- 19. The problems and issues through which the
company went through were as follows:
1. Technology problem: Although the technology is changing and improving within the
shortest period of time and is also expanding to the great speed but still it is not so
advanced to get that much efficient. There are still many network issues related to the
network data which creates problems for the students to get a proper connectivity with
the net so that they can resume their studies through online. There a lot of issues which
needs to get clear so that a proper connectivity get provided to the people who are living
in different countries or in different state (Ratten and Jones, 2020). As the company
McGraw- The hill is an American company which provides the online study lectures and
materials to a lot of various countries and due to the technological issues the students
who are living at far more countries may face various technological issues related to
connectivity.
2. Excess to technology: Though the world is evolving at very hour but still there are areas
which do not have the proper excess to technology making it hard for the students to get a
proper excess to technology for resuming their studies. As the company is totally an
online or digital company in providing the educational services to students and due to
lock down of institutions the students cannot have excess to the proper studies also. This
through a major drawback for the company has the excess to the technology is still
limited to some areas of the world. And during the time of Covid such students faced the
real problem in having excess to education.
3. Poor connection: Sometimes it is also have seen that the students faced a lot of
connectivity issue to the site of company. There are times when the company site is not
running properly through which the students faced a lot of problem in getting connect
with the study notes and lectures. Therefore poor connection was also a major reason for
not able get a connection between the students and company's site.

Potential strategic solutions
To surmounted the problem which the company faced during the lock down there are
various steps which the company took in making their work and performance more effective and
efficient. Some of the solutions were as:
Building up of efficient site: The company to solve the issue for poor connectivity came
out with a solution of building up a site which can get connected with even the few connection or
network. Through the formation of such site the company would be able to give the required
connection to the students who faced the problem of low network or connection. By building up
such site the company would also be able to increase their customer base as more and more
customers could get excess to their sites. Through this the company can also get an increase in
the revenue which they are getting even in the lock down period.
Giving excess to people by providing physical books: Although the company is
engaged with the business of providing the study material to the students through the use of
internet and digital platforms but due to the technological disturbances the company has planned
to bridge the gap between the students and their studies (Tolsgaard and et al., 2020). They can
perform this through providing the physical books to the areas where there are network issue or
the areas where the technology cannot access. Due to this the company can increase its business,
customer base, reputation, image and much more. The company can gain a lot of popularity
through the physical distribution of books and study materials along with the profit as the
availability of the same would be not according to the demand.
CONCLUSION
From the report discusses above, the problems which the company, McGraw- The hill
faced in the time of Covid has been discussed. There were many technological and excess
problem through which the students were failing to have a proper excess to the company's site.
But to surmount these problems the company came up with many steps so that they can
minimum the disadvantages which they are facing during lock downs. These steps may include
building up of effective and efficient site, distribution of books and publications at the remote
areas and much more.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Dwivedi, Y .K. and et al., 2020. Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on information management
research and practice: Transforming education, work and life. International Journal of
Information Management. 55. p.102211.
Keswani, R. N., and et al., 2020. How to maximize trainee education during the coronavirus
disease-2019 pandemic: Perspectives from around the world. Gastroenterology. 159(1).
pp.26-29.
Lackie, K., and et al., 2020. Interprofessional education and collaborative practice research
during the COVID-19 pandemic: Considerations to advance the field. Journal of
Interprofessional Care, pp.1-4.
Ratten, V. and Jones, P., 2020. Covid-19 and entrepreneurship education: Implications for
advancing research and practice. The International Journal of Management Education,
p.100432.
Tolsgaard, M. G., and et al., 2020. How we make choices and sacrifices in medical education
during the COVID-19 pandemic. Medical Teacher, pp.1-3.

PART B
Reflective Report on Key Skills Development
As a learner I need to develop many skills in me. Through the development of these skills
I can develop a positive improvement in my knowledge which can help me in giving a career
which I want. Some of these skills include communication skills, command on numeracy, skills
related with ICT, development of a proper logical and reasoning skills. I have applied various
approaches through which I can develop the required skills in me. With the help of learning
model I managed to inculcate these skills in me. I performed the VARK learning style which has
helped me in getting the things or skills learned with ease.
To develop the ICT skills in me I prefer the Kinesthetic learning style. In such type of
learning the learner develops the the skills through practically get the skills learned. To inculcate
the skills of using the information technology in me I had planned to practice for the exercises
which has helped me in development of the same skill. I have decided to give more time and
practice because to get a good command in the same I need to perform a lot of practice work.
Only through practice I can get a proper command in this skill. I practice for operating the MS
office and some relevant software (Bean and Forneris, 2017). Apart from this, I also analysed
that the skills for reasoning and analytical analyses is also very important to execute. As a good
reasoning and analytical skill can helps an individual in evaluating the situation properly. Proper
evaluation of these skills would help me in getting the appropriate solutions for the situations
(Dong and et al., 2017). I have developed his skill by regular practising for development of this
skill. I tried to solve many case studies for company which helped me in becoming with possible
alternatives. This ability has opened my mind and intelligence to look for the possible solutions
for any problem. The rational analysis has helped me in getting the task done with full evaluation
of the situation. Through the regular studies of case studies about company and their problematic
situation I tend of develop the analytical skills in me. Therefore through the help of Kinesthetic
learning style I inculcate the skill of ICT and analytical reasoning which I believe was very
important to have command.

Communication skills: communication skills are important factor which related to
perforce of function and achieving objectives in to manage better future carrier. I also use to
develop my Communication skills to manage function an achieving better results in my future,.
These are number of function which can be use to achieve carrier objectives and managing
function in effectuate way. For developing my Communication skills I use an particular frame
work which is named as VARK model. The VARK model of learning styles is use to identify
various function and helps me in identification of function that there are four main types of
learners: visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinaesthetic. Visual function helps me in
identification of my current ablates in this module. These are related to my present capabilities in
communicate skills. This is helpful to me in gaining function and performing these function in
appropriate manner. Auditory learners are most successful when they are given the opportunity
to hear information presented to them vocally. This helps me in shaping my communication
skills as it provide me opportunity to listen my lectures. Effective listening helps me in
developing goof abilities and using effective tools to communicate information. Reading/Writing
Learner is also used. This includes both written information presented in class in the form of
handouts and PowerPoint slide presentations as well as the opportunity to synthesize course
content in the completion of written assignments (Hughes, 2018). This helps me in developing
my communication skill by keeping record of number of information that I gained from class
lectures. Kinaesthetic learners are hands-on, participatory learners who need to take a physically
active role in the learning process in order to achieve their best educational outcomes. This is
also use to promote function ad using these function gather information for better
communication. This also helps me in developing those skills which gain potestative and helps in
achieving higher knowledge. In end, this model is used full to shape my communication skills in
effective manner.
Also having the proper skills for numeracy is also important. I believe such skill would
help me in developing the data and statistical development within me. For that I had planned to
practice for various data interpretation exercise. With the help of these exercises I develop the
knowledge and skill for interpretation of data so that I can make the right and proper decision for
the situation. To inculcate this skill I read and write a lot about the things and topics which I have
learned yet; Read/ write learners (Zhang and et al., 2019). This type of learning style has
helped me in getting the ability to build up and interpreted the data in the required form so that

the important information can get retrieve from them. The ability to the perform the numericals
and interpretation of data does helped in coming up with legitimate reasons or results.
CONCLUSION
To bring up the positive change in me and my skills I have planned to develop to
inculcate some of the skills and knowledge in himself. The skills which I planned to work upon
are communication skills, reasoning ability, problem solving skills, skills related to information
technology, and numeracy skills. I gained these learning through the help of VARK model.
VARK model is an abbreviation of visual, audio, read and kinesthetic skill which helps a person
in knowing about the learning style which a person can have or use to make the things learn. I
noticed that for these skills I adopt the learning style like Kinesthetic, read and write and visual
learning styles.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bean, C. and Forneris, T., 2017. Is life skill development a by-product of sport participation?
Perceptions of youth sport coaches. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology. 29(2). pp.234-
250.
Dong, Y., and et al., 2017. Enhancing employee creativity via individual skill development and
team knowledge sharing: Influences of dual‐focused transformational leadership. Journal
of Organizational Behavior. 38(3). pp.439-458.
Hughes, C., 2018. The role of HRD in using diversity intelligence to enhance leadership skill
development and talent management strategy. Advances in Developing Human
Resources. 20(3). pp.259-262.
Zhang, X., and et al., 2019. Young Chinese children's academic skill development: Identifying
child‐, family‐, and school‐level factors. New directions for child and adolescent
development. 2019(163), pp.9-37.