As the completed SWOT and Porter analyses demonstrated, the MAC University Library has significant internal weaknesses and external threats that might hinder its competitive advantage in the market and reduce its value compared to rivals. To address these drawbacks and risks, the library should use its strengths and opportunities and favorable market conditions to improve the library’s value to the university. This report is designed to introduce a strategic action aimed at efficiently implementing initiatives worthy of investment. It presents the scoring model and the results of its application to the strategic initiative.
The proposed strategic plan that was developed on the basis of the conducted analysis is based on funds relocation to fulfill the three-fold strategy. The initiatives included are technology updating, provision of training to library faculty, and new study spaces development. A scoring model was developed to assess these initiatives as components of the strategic project. As it is seen from Figure 1, the scoring model is composed of 5 criteria, and each appointed a particular weight and values.
The five criteria include cost-benefit ratio, strategic impact, the urgency of needs, complexity, and IT department’s effort (see Figure 1). The weight of each of the criteria was validated by the level of importance of it to the success and efficiency of the overall implementation of the project. Therefore, the distribution of weights, the total score of which is 100, was as follows: 35 for criterion 1, 25 for criterion 2, 15 for criterion 3, 15 for criterion 4, and 10 for criterion 5. The values, namely 1, 3, and 5, were allocated to each criterion’s significance. To use the presented scoring model, one should assess the significance of each criterion and multiply its value by its weight. The scores for each criterion should then be summed to obtain a project’s total score, the minimum of which is 100, and the maximum is 500.
When using the scoring model for the assessment of the strategic plan, each of the five discussed criteria was used with the consideration of their respective values. Firstly, according to the cost-benefit ratio, the proposed strategic project scored 175, which implies its benefits equaling three times of costs. Such a high score indicates the financial profit from the implementation of the project, which is essential for the organization under the current conditions of under-funding. Secondly, the plan scored the maximum score of 125 according to the criterion of strategic impact. It demonstrates that the project will have a high level of impact on the overall organizational strategy enhancing its potential to grow and competitive advantage facilitation. Thirdly, the urgency of needs was assessed at the highest score of 75 due to the ability of the proposed strategic plan to meet the urgent needs of the organization for change. Fourthly, the same maximum score was obtained in complexity criteria, which is assessed as low. Finally, the IT department’s efforts are minimal with only two or fewer man-months of work, which justifies the investment into the project’s implementation.
Consequently, the proposed scoring model has helped to assess the potential of the strategic plan to fit the library’s strategy within the context of the current university situation. Furthermore, the scope of the chosen criteria allowed for accurate and adequate analysis of each element on the strategic initiative characteristics to identify the worthiness of the university’s investment into the relocation of funds for technology updating, staff training, and study space improvement. As the results of the scoring show, the project scored the highest score, which implies that it is worth investing in.