How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape
In today's rapidly changing and fast-paced media landscape, consumer attention is a rare and fractured commodity. Within this environment, marketing and branding must serve customers who are attending to multiple media simultaneously, while brand placement moves brands outside of advertisements and into incidental exposure. Some brands offer a strong, consistent, and focused brand identity on all consumer-facing fronts, from advertising to event promotion and retail environments. These brands can retain their effectiveness in this new media reality, as mere exposure is all that's required to activate their rich brand identity. At the same time, brand exposure effects illuminate the vast role of nonconscious attention and processing in consumer cognition and behavior. New research shows that even incidental exposure to a brand can alter consumer behavior in manners consistent with brand identity, producing effects which may persist outside of marketing contexts and occur even when the product is not purchased or consumed. These findings suggest that strong brand identities can retain effectiveness in the modern media environment, but further work is needed to explore their multi-dimensional effects on consumer life.
Swot Analysis of "How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape" written by Adam S Brasel includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Exposure Brand facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Exposure Brand, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Exposure Brand 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 How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Exposure Brand
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 Exposure Brand
Strengths How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Exposure Brand in How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Exposure Brand is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Exposure Brand in the sector have low bargaining power. How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Exposure Brand to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Exposure Brand 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 Exposure Brand in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Exposure Brand 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 Exposure Brand is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Exposure Brand has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Exposure Brand 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Exposure Brand 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 How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Exposure Brand 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 Adam S Brasel 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Exposure Brand is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape 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.
Training and development
– Exposure Brand has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape 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.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Exposure Brand digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Exposure Brand 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Exposure Brand 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 How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape are -
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Exposure Brand 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Adam S Brasel suggests that, Exposure Brand is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape, it seems that the employees of Exposure Brand 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Exposure Brand has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Exposure Brand, firm in the HBR case study How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Exposure Brand 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 How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape, in the dynamic environment Exposure Brand has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Exposure Brand has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Exposure Brand 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Sales & Marketing 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.
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 Exposure Brand supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Exposure Brand vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape 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 How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Exposure Brand is planning to shift buying processes online.
Opportunities How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape | 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 How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Exposure Brand 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 Exposure Brand to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Exposure Brand can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Sales & Marketing 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Exposure Brand can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Exposure Brand can develop new processes and procedures in Sales & Marketing 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Exposure Brand is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape 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.
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. Exposure Brand can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Exposure Brand has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Exposure Brand to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape case study. Exposure Brand 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. Exposure Brand can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 Exposure Brand 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Exposure Brand can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Sales & Marketing segment.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Exposure Brand 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Exposure Brand can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Exposure Brand operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Exposure Brand 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.
Threats How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape are -
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.
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. Exposure Brand can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Exposure Brand is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Exposure Brand
– 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 Exposure Brand.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Exposure Brand with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Exposure Brand 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Exposure Brand 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, Exposure Brand 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 How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Exposure Brand 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.
Environmental challenges
– Exposure Brand 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. Exposure Brand can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Exposure Brand 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.
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 Exposure Brand.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Exposure Brand has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Exposure Brand 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape 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 How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape 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 How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape 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 How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape 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 How Focused Identities Can help Brands Navigate A Changing Media Landscape 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 Exposure Brand needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
