The Metropolitan Opera (A) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of The Metropolitan Opera (A)
In April 2007, the New York City Metropolitan Opera's general manager Peter Gelb looks back on the first season of a daring experiment to broadcast performances live in high-definition to movie theaters across North America. While the "Live in HD" program has received mostly positive reviews, there are lingering concerns. Do the benefits of the simulcasts continue to outweigh the possible drawbacks and the significant operational and financial resources?
Swot Analysis of "The Metropolitan Opera (A)" written by Anita Elberse, Crissy Perez includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Metropolitan Live facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The Metropolitan Opera (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing, Technology and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The Metropolitan Opera (A) casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The Metropolitan Opera (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The Metropolitan Opera (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Metropolitan Live, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Metropolitan Live 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 The Metropolitan Opera (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The Metropolitan Opera (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Metropolitan Live
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 Metropolitan Live
Strengths The Metropolitan Opera (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Metropolitan Live in The Metropolitan Opera (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Metropolitan Live is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the The Metropolitan Opera (A) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the The Metropolitan Opera (A) 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Metropolitan Live has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Metropolitan Live 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Metropolitan Live is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in The Metropolitan Opera (A) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Strong track record of project management
– Metropolitan Live is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Metropolitan Live in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Metropolitan Live 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.
Learning organization
- Metropolitan Live 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 Metropolitan Live is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in The Metropolitan Opera (A) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Metropolitan Live is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in The Metropolitan Opera (A) 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Metropolitan Live has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Training and development
– Metropolitan Live has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in The Metropolitan Opera (A) 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Metropolitan Live in the sector have low bargaining power. The Metropolitan Opera (A) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Metropolitan Live to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses The Metropolitan Opera (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The Metropolitan Opera (A) are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Metropolitan Live products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Metropolitan Live 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 The Metropolitan Opera (A) 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 Metropolitan Live has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Metropolitan Live 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Metropolitan Live is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study The Metropolitan Opera (A) 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 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 Metropolitan Live supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - The Metropolitan Opera (A), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Metropolitan Live vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study The Metropolitan Opera (A) 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 The Metropolitan Opera (A) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Metropolitan Live is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Metropolitan Live 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. Metropolitan Live 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 Metropolitan Live is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Metropolitan Live needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Metropolitan Live to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study The Metropolitan Opera (A), 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Metropolitan Live 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 - The Metropolitan Opera (A) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study The Metropolitan Opera (A), it seems that the employees of Metropolitan Live 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.
Opportunities The Metropolitan Opera (A) | 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 The Metropolitan Opera (A) are -
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. Metropolitan Live can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Metropolitan Live 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Metropolitan Live 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
– Metropolitan Live 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Metropolitan Live can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Metropolitan Live 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 Metropolitan Live can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Metropolitan Live is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. The Metropolitan Opera (A) 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.
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. Metropolitan Live 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. Metropolitan Live 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Metropolitan Live has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Metropolitan Live to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the The Metropolitan Opera (A) case study. Metropolitan Live can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Metropolitan Live 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Metropolitan Live 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 Metropolitan Live 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, Metropolitan Live 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Metropolitan Live to increase its market reach. Metropolitan Live 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.
Threats The Metropolitan Opera (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The Metropolitan Opera (A) are -
Increasing wage structure of Metropolitan Live
– 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 Metropolitan Live.
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. Metropolitan Live 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.
Environmental challenges
– Metropolitan Live 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. Metropolitan Live can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Metropolitan Live is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Metropolitan Live with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Metropolitan Live 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.
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 Metropolitan Live business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Metropolitan Live 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 The Metropolitan Opera (A) .
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. Metropolitan Live can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Metropolitan Live.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Metropolitan Live 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Metropolitan Live 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study The Metropolitan Opera (A), Metropolitan Live 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 .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The Metropolitan Opera (A) 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 The Metropolitan Opera (A) 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 The Metropolitan Opera (A) 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 The Metropolitan Opera (A) 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 The Metropolitan Opera (A) 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 Metropolitan Live needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
