Swot Analysis of "Private Media Group (B)" written by Mary M. Crossan, Jean-Philippe Vergne, Ken Mark, Jordan Mitchell includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that W15026 Supplement facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Private Media Group (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Market research, Strategy and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Private Media Group (B) casestudy better are - – increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Private Media Group (B)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Private Media Group (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the W15026 Supplement, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which W15026 Supplement operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Private Media Group (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Private Media Group (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of W15026 Supplement
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of W15026 Supplement
Strengths Private Media Group (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of W15026 Supplement in Private Media Group (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– W15026 Supplement is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Private Media Group (B) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Organizational Resilience of W15026 Supplement
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that W15026 Supplement does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– W15026 Supplement has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Private Media Group (B) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Private Media Group (B) Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that W15026 Supplement has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Training and development
– W15026 Supplement has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Private Media Group (B) Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– W15026 Supplement has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Private Media Group (B) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– W15026 Supplement is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Mary M. Crossan, Jean-Philippe Vergne, Ken Mark, Jordan Mitchell can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the W15026 Supplement are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– W15026 Supplement is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Private Media Group (B) case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Learning organization
- W15026 Supplement is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at W15026 Supplement is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Private Media Group (B) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For W15026 Supplement digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. W15026 Supplement has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Weaknesses Private Media Group (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Private Media Group (B) are -
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Private Media Group (B), it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Leadership & Managing People strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Lack of clear differentiation of W15026 Supplement products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, W15026 Supplement needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, W15026 Supplement needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Private Media Group (B), is just above the industry average. W15026 Supplement needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Private Media Group (B), in the dynamic environment W15026 Supplement has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. W15026 Supplement has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of W15026 Supplement supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Private Media Group (B), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left W15026 Supplement vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Private Media Group (B) that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Private Media Group (B) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as W15026 Supplement is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, W15026 Supplement has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. W15026 Supplement even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Need for greater diversity
– W15026 Supplement has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Private Media Group (B) HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though W15026 Supplement has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of W15026 Supplement, firm in the HBR case study Private Media Group (B) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Private Media Group (B) | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Private Media Group (B) are -
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help W15026 Supplement to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Loyalty marketing
– W15026 Supplement has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for W15026 Supplement in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Leadership & Managing People segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, W15026 Supplement can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Developing new processes and practices
– W15026 Supplement can develop new processes and procedures in Leadership & Managing People industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– W15026 Supplement can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, W15026 Supplement can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, Private Media Group (B), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Manufacturing automation
– W15026 Supplement can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for W15026 Supplement to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of W15026 Supplement has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help W15026 Supplement to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Private Media Group (B) case study. W15026 Supplement can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. W15026 Supplement can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects W15026 Supplement can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for W15026 Supplement in the consumer business. Now W15026 Supplement can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Private Media Group (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Private Media Group (B) are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. W15026 Supplement can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– W15026 Supplement needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Leadership & Managing People industry regulations.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. W15026 Supplement needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on W15026 Supplement demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Private Media Group (B), W15026 Supplement may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Leadership & Managing People .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– W15026 Supplement has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, W15026 Supplement needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Leadership & Managing People sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Environmental challenges
– W15026 Supplement needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. W15026 Supplement can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– W15026 Supplement can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, W15026 Supplement can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Private Media Group (B) .
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that W15026 Supplement is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. W15026 Supplement will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Private Media Group (B) Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Private Media Group (B) needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Private Media Group (B) is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Private Media Group (B) is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Private Media Group (B) is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that W15026 Supplement needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.