Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital
In January 2010, Bob Bowman, chief executive officer of Major League Baseball Advanced Media -- MLB's digital arm -- is facing a number of decisions related to its app for Apple's new iPad. For example, what are the best name, price, and set of features for MLBAM's iPad app? The case describes what is often seen as one of the most successful paid-content businesses in sports and media. Provides in-depth information on MLBAM's four main sources of revenues and relates those to the league's overall revenues. It also describes the company's online and mobile offerings in considerable detail and outlines the choices facing MLB's offering for Apple's iPad device, enabling a rich discussion of viable marketing strategies.
Swot Analysis of "Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital" written by Anita Elberse, Brett Laffel includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Ipad Mlb's facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Internet, Marketing and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, 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,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ipad Mlb's, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ipad Mlb's 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 Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ipad Mlb's
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 Ipad Mlb's
Strengths Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ipad Mlb's in Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ipad Mlb's 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 Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ipad Mlb's to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ipad Mlb's to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Ipad Mlb's is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital 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.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ipad Mlb's digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ipad Mlb's 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.
Learning organization
- Ipad Mlb's 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 Ipad Mlb's is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Ipad Mlb's is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ipad Mlb's is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Ipad Mlb's 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.
Organizational Resilience of Ipad Mlb's
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Ipad Mlb's does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management
– Ipad Mlb's 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
– Ipad Mlb's has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital 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.
Weaknesses Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital, it seems that the employees of Ipad Mlb's 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 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 Ipad Mlb's supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Ipad Mlb's vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ipad Mlb's has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital HBR case study mentions - Ipad Mlb's 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Ipad Mlb's 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 - Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital 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 Ipad Mlb's 's lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital, 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Ipad Mlb's is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Ipad Mlb's needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Ipad Mlb's to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Anita Elberse, Brett Laffel suggests that, Ipad Mlb's 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Ipad Mlb's 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Ipad Mlb's, firm in the HBR case study Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital | 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 Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital are -
Manufacturing automation
– Ipad Mlb's 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ipad Mlb's 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 Ipad Mlb's to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ipad Mlb's has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Ipad Mlb's to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital case study. Ipad Mlb's can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ipad Mlb's has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ipad Mlb's to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Ipad Mlb's 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.
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 Ipad Mlb's 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Ipad Mlb's can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Ipad Mlb's 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, Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Ipad Mlb's 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. Ipad Mlb's 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Ipad Mlb's can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ipad Mlb's operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– Ipad Mlb's 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.
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. Ipad Mlb's can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ipad Mlb's is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital 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.
Threats Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Ipad Mlb's with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Ipad Mlb's in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Ipad Mlb's needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ipad Mlb's 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.
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. Ipad Mlb's 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.
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 Ipad Mlb's business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ipad Mlb's is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ipad Mlb's 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ipad Mlb's 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 Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital .
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 Ipad Mlb's.
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. Ipad Mlb's can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Ipad Mlb's has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ipad Mlb's 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 Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital 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 Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital 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 Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital 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 Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital 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 Major League Baseball Advanced Media: America's Pastime Goes Digital 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 Ipad Mlb's needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.