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What is Naviance's competitive advantage and what are the market mechanics that would prove or disprove that advantage?
Hello! Thanks for your question about Naviance's competitive advantage and the market mechanics affecting that advantage. The short version is that Naviance's competitive advantage is based on a student-centered approach, integration, accessibility, and data visualization. The market mechanics that prove this advantage are market penetration, revenue, social media following, and industry awards.
Below you will find a deep dive of my findings.
methodology
In order to get a broad sense of Naviance's competitive advantage, we searched a range of professional association's websites, trusted media sites, industry professional's sites, and software comparison sites. We also used information from Naviance's website. These sources also provided the data on the market mechanics driving this advantage.
competitive advantage
Naviance's competitive advantage is grounded in a number of features that differentiate it from its competitors. The most salient of these features are: a student-centered approach, integration, accessibility, and data visualization.
Unlike other student management platforms, Naviance's approach is centered around the student experience. Naviance provides a suite of products in addition to college application management that allow students to manage their own "self discovery." Using StrengthExplorer, students can figure out in what areas they excel and find careers and colleges that match those skills. The National Career Development Association has praised these career exploration tools as a key part of career preparation for American students.
Another distinct feature of Naviance is the integration of multiple tools into a single platform. College and career preparation, career exploration, academic planning, self discovery, teacher professional development and counseling services are all packaged together into a unified user experience. This allows schools, parents, and students to perform a range of tasks without needing multiple pieces of software. This is a particularly helpful tool when managing college applications, which often require half a dozen people to collaborate on a single application.
Naviance facilitates this type of collaboration seamlessly by making accessibility a central part of its design. Students, teachers, counselors, and parents all have access through the same interface. This is crucial to student success, as informed support from parents and teachers is often a major determinant of a student's progress. Naviance calls this feature Family Connection because it helps keep families involved in the increasingly complicated educational process.
Data visualization is a minor part of Naviance's platform, but some evidence suggests that it is a crucial element for student engagement. Naviance allows students to view a scatter plot of past students who have applied to the same schools they are applying to, grouped by GPA and test score, and shows where they sit in relation to students who were accepted. This allows students to get a sense of their chances when applying to certain schools. Many students, particularly in very competitive schools, have found this feature extremely helpful in calming application fears and it may explain Naviance's popularity among students.
Market mechanics
There are a number of market mechanics that point to Naviance's advantage over its competitors, namely: market penetration, revenue, social media following, and industry awards. According to Owler, a company that watches trends in education, the primary competitors to Naviance are BridgeU and Vibeffect.
Naviance has impressive market penetration, with more than 5,400 schools currently using the software internationally.
According to Owler, Naviance made over $15 million in revenue last year. This is more than five times the revenue of Vibeffect, its next closest competitor.
Owler also tracks social media engagement and Naviance currently outpaces its competitors on both Facebook and Twitter.
Moreover, Naviance was recently awarded the SIIA CODiE Award for Best College & Career Readiness Solution. The award cited Naviance's "assessment availability, customization, feature set, integration of partner resources, flexibility, reporting, innovation, and usability." It further noted that, "Naviance was a great platform for schools, students and families."
Taken together, these market mechanics indicate that Naviance is performing well within the market landscape.
conclusion
To wrap it up, Naviance's competitive advantage is based on its student-centered approach, integration, accessibility, and data visualization. The market mechanics that demonstrate this advantage are market penetration, revenue, social media following, and industry awards.
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