Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math
In 2003, Mike McCready, CEO of Barcelona-based Polyphonic HMI, was preparing to launch an artificial intelligence tool that could create significant value for music businesses. The technology, referred to as Hit Song Science (HSS), analyzed the mathematical characteristics of music and compared them to characteristics of past music hits, making it possible to determine a new song's hit potential. McCready must decide on a target market--record companies, producers, or unsigned artists--and develop a marketing plan that helps overcome the likely resistance against adoption.
Authors :: Anita Elberse, Jehoshua Eliashberg, Julian Villanueva
Swot Analysis of "Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math" written by Anita Elberse, Jehoshua Eliashberg, Julian Villanueva includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Music Hmi facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Forecasting, Growth strategy, Innovation, Marketing, Pricing, Technology and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Music Hmi, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Music Hmi 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 Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Music Hmi
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 Music Hmi
Strengths Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Music Hmi in Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Music Hmi 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 Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Music Hmi in the sector have low bargaining power. Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Music Hmi to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math 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.
Training and development
– Music Hmi has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Music Hmi in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Music Hmi
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Music Hmi does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Music Hmi digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Music Hmi 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Music Hmi has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Music Hmi 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Music Hmi 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 Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management
– Music Hmi is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Music Hmi to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Music Hmi to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Music Hmi is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math 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 Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Music Hmi is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Music Hmi 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. Music Hmi 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Music Hmi is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Music Hmi needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Music Hmi to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math, it seems that the employees of Music Hmi 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Anita Elberse, Jehoshua Eliashberg, Julian Villanueva suggests that, Music Hmi 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math, is just above the industry average. Music Hmi 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math, 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Music Hmi is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Music Hmi 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Music Hmi products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Music Hmi needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Music Hmi 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.
Opportunities Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math | 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 Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Music Hmi is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Music Hmi can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Music Hmi operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Music Hmi can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Music Hmi 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 Music Hmi to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Music Hmi 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Music Hmi can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Music Hmi 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Music Hmi to increase its market reach. Music Hmi 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.
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. Music Hmi 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. Music Hmi 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Music Hmi 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
– Music Hmi 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Music Hmi 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Music Hmi 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 Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Music Hmi 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.
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. Music Hmi 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. Music Hmi 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Music Hmi 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 Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math .
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. Music Hmi needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Music Hmi 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 Music Hmi
– 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 Music Hmi.
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.
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 Music Hmi business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Music Hmi 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Music Hmi has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Music Hmi 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.
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 Music Hmi.
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 Music Hmi in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math 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 Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math 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 Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math 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 Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math 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 Polyphonic HMI: Mixing Music and Math 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 Music Hmi needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.