Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan
The emergence, proliferation, and ubiquity of the Internet have not only transformed businesses, but also altered the relationship between the business and the customer. Recent advances in technology have helped to migrate this relationship to an interactive level where technology contributes to brand building by creating and sustaining a long-term relationship with the customer. Media fragmentation and customer indifference to traditional marketing tools are forcing marketers to seek new opportunities so the marketing message not only captures customers' attention, but also tries to engage them with the company. This paper discusses blogs within the context of creating this new, more enduring relationship with the customer. Blogs are discussed within the framework of Web 2.0, the next generation of the Internet, which is comprised of user-generated content and social computing. The use of blogs by several companies as tools to better engage the customer in the creation, delivery, and dissemination of marketing messages is also demonstrated.
Authors :: Tanuja Singh, Liza Veron-Jackson, Joe Cullinane
Swot Analysis of "Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan" written by Tanuja Singh, Liza Veron-Jackson, Joe Cullinane includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Blogs Relationship facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, IT, Marketing and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Blogs Relationship, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Blogs Relationship 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 Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Blogs Relationship
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Sales & Marketing field.
4. Making a Sales & Marketing topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Blogs Relationship
Strengths Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Blogs Relationship in Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Blogs Relationship in the sector have low bargaining power. Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Blogs Relationship to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Blogs Relationship has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Blogs Relationship to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Blogs Relationship to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Blogs Relationship to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Blogs Relationship is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Blogs Relationship 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 Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Blogs Relationship 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 Tanuja Singh, Liza Veron-Jackson, Joe Cullinane 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Blogs Relationship is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Blogs Relationship in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Blogs Relationship 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.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Blogs Relationship is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Blogs Relationship in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Blogs Relationship 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 Blogs Relationship is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Blogs Relationship has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan, in the dynamic environment Blogs Relationship has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Blogs Relationship has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Blogs Relationship has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Blogs Relationship has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan HBR case study mentions - Blogs Relationship takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan, it seems that the employees of Blogs Relationship don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Blogs Relationship is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Blogs Relationship, firm in the HBR case study Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Blogs Relationship products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Blogs Relationship needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan 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 Blogs Relationship has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Blogs Relationship supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Blogs Relationship vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Opportunities Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan | 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 Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Blogs Relationship in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Sales & Marketing segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Blogs Relationship is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Blogs Relationship 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Blogs Relationship to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Blogs Relationship to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Blogs Relationship can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Sales & Marketing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Blogs Relationship can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Blogs Relationship in the consumer business. Now Blogs Relationship can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Blogs Relationship 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Blogs Relationship has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Blogs Relationship to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Blogs Relationship can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Blogs Relationship operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
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 Blogs Relationship 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Blogs Relationship to increase its market reach. Blogs Relationship will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Blogs Relationship can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan are -
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Blogs Relationship business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Blogs Relationship 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.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Blogs Relationship in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Blogs Relationship is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan, Blogs Relationship may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Sales & Marketing .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Blogs Relationship has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Blogs Relationship needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Sales & Marketing 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.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Blogs Relationship high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Environmental challenges
– Blogs Relationship 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. Blogs Relationship can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Increasing wage structure of Blogs Relationship
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Blogs Relationship.
Regulatory challenges
– Blogs Relationship 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 Sales & Marketing industry regulations.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Sales & Marketing field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Blogs Relationship can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Blogs Relationship 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 Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan 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 Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan 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 Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan 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 Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan 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 Blogging: A New Play in Your Marketing Game Plan 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 Blogs Relationship needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
