Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability
This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. It's a marketer's dream--the ability to develop interactive relationships with individual customers. Technology, in the form of the database, is making this dream a reality. Now companies can keep track of customer preferences and tailor advertising and promotions to those needs. For instance, a grocery store system could note that you recently purchased a sample size of dishwashing detergent and could offer you a coupon to buy the large size. Explores the impact of this development on marketing practices and gives practical advice on designing a marketing database and staffing an interactive marketing department. Also addresses customer fears and the public debate over marketing and privacy.
Swot Analysis of "Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability" written by Robert C. Blattberg, John Deighton includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Interactive Marketing facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Interactive Marketing, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Interactive Marketing 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 Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Interactive Marketing
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 Interactive Marketing
Strengths Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Interactive Marketing in Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Interactive Marketing in the sector have low bargaining power. Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Interactive Marketing to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Interactive Marketing is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability 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 Interactive Marketing in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Strong track record of project management
– Interactive Marketing is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Interactive Marketing has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability 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.
Analytics focus
– Interactive Marketing 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 Robert C. Blattberg, John Deighton 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Interactive Marketing has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Interactive Marketing has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Learning organization
- Interactive Marketing 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 Interactive Marketing is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Interactive Marketing 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 Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Interactive Marketing to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Interactive Marketing to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Interactive Marketing 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 Interactive Marketing in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Interactive Marketing 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.
Weaknesses Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Interactive Marketing 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. Interactive Marketing 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.
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 Interactive Marketing supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Interactive Marketing vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Interactive Marketing 's lucrative customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Interactive Marketing 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Interactive Marketing 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability 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 Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Interactive Marketing is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability HBR case study mentions - Interactive Marketing 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability 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 Interactive Marketing has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Interactive Marketing, firm in the HBR case study Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Interactive Marketing has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Interactive Marketing is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Interactive Marketing needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Interactive Marketing to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability | 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 Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability 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 Interactive Marketing 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Interactive Marketing 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 Interactive Marketing to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Interactive Marketing can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Interactive Marketing has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Interactive Marketing to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability case study. Interactive Marketing can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Interactive Marketing can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Interactive Marketing operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Interactive Marketing 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Sales & Marketing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Interactive Marketing can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Interactive Marketing can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Interactive Marketing 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Interactive Marketing 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, Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Interactive Marketing can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Interactive Marketing to increase its market reach. Interactive Marketing 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Interactive Marketing 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Interactive Marketing 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.
Threats Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability are -
Environmental challenges
– Interactive Marketing 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. Interactive Marketing can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
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. Interactive Marketing needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Interactive Marketing.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Interactive Marketing 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 Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Interactive Marketing 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.
Increasing wage structure of Interactive Marketing
– 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 Interactive Marketing.
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 Interactive Marketing business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Interactive Marketing in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Interactive Marketing in the Sales & Marketing industry. The Sales & Marketing industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Interactive Marketing 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability, Interactive Marketing 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 .
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. Interactive Marketing 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability 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 Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability 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 Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability 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 Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability 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 Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability 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 Interactive Marketing needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
