Washtenaw Community College might benefit by taking a page out of Hormel’s book. The multinational food distributor headquartered in Minnesota, is worth nearly $17B, but despite owning nearly 30 brands and more than a dozen subsidiary companies, it makes 80% of its money on a relatively small number of products.
So, the company plans to remove about 25% of its lowest-performing items. This will save the company from storing these less profitable or unprofitable products in its warehouses or letting them age on store shelves.
For Hormel, this means removing 15-20 different varieties of pepperoni from its repertoire. On one hand, it removes specialty items from the shelf that consumers may not be able to find elsewhere. On the other hand, it means the company is admitting that being all things to all consumers may not be the best strategy after all.
And Hormel isn’t the only retailer that’s adopting this strategy. Retailers are coming to grips with the fact that consumers are no longer in the mood to absorb the price increases that enable them to maintain a large selection of product variations. Without the ability to raise prices, retailers are instead opting to reduce the number of products they offer. First on the chopping block? Low-performing variations of base products. That means fewer flavors and fewer sizes, as producers focus on their star performers.
So, how could this benefit Washtenaw Community College? In the same Hormel can no longer put six dozen varieties of peperoni on store shelves without hurting itself, WCC needs to assess its degree and certificate offerings to find out which ones should no longer remain in the catalog. Hormel’s motivation for doing this is to improve its bottom line. WCC should be doing this to improve its contributions to the community.
Cleaning out the catalog at Washtenaw Community College
Identifying the degree programs and certificates that offer the highest earning potential will do two things immediately. First, it will identify the programs that have the lowest rate of return to the community. When these programs consistently produce low-paid graduates, they actively harm the communities in Washtenaw County. Worse, they cause our prime age workers to leave when they can’t use their Washtenaw Community College degree to earn enough to live here.
Second, it will identify the number of programs in WCC’s catalog that don’t produce sufficient return to the students and ultimately to the communities in Washtenaw County. Knowing how many programs do not enable Washtenaw County residents to earn a living income will be a reckoning that’s long overdue. We need to focus WCC’s efforts on creating and offering programs that deliver sufficient income potential to enable our communities to retain their prime age workers. Without a prime-age workforce, our communities will not be able to attract the new employers and new industries that will enable them to build (or in some cases, rebuild) their economies.
Removing low performing programs from WCC’s catalog is not an option. It is the first step in creating programs with the income potential that Washtenaw County needs.
Photo Credit: Jennifer, via Flickr
