Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution
In January 1999, @Home, a high-speed Internet access provider, announced the $6.7 billion purchase of Excite, the second largest of the major Internet "portals." This purchase marked a continuing consolidation of companies in the Internet "content" and "access" businesses and raised new issues about the form of future competitive success in the online arena. With the merger, @Home's largest minority shareholder, AT&T, inherited a contract with Excite that guaranteed the content provider exclusive access to its cable pipelines until 2002. In the months that followed, many analysts asked whether this contract would hurt AT&T in the long run, and rumors of an Excite@Home breakup pounded the stock. Excite@Home denied these reports, but many analysts suggested such a deal would be a positive move for both @Home and AT&T, which would no longer be bound to offer the content of single provider over their high-speed connections.
Swot Analysis of "Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution" written by Stephen P. Bradley, Matthew Sandoval includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Excite Home facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Competition, Internet, Mergers & acquisitions and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Excite Home, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Excite Home 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 Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Excite Home
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Excite Home
Strengths Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Excite Home in Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Excite Home 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 Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Excite Home digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Excite Home 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
– Excite Home has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Excite Home 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.
Analytics focus
– Excite Home 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 Stephen P. Bradley, Matthew Sandoval 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Excite Home 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
– Excite Home has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution 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.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Excite Home 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 Excite Home in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Excite Home 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 Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution 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 Excite Home in the sector have low bargaining power. Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Excite Home to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management
– Excite Home is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High brand equity
– Excite Home has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Excite Home to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution 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.
Weaknesses Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution 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 Excite Home 's lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Excite Home 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Excite Home 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Excite Home 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Excite Home 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Excite Home products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Excite Home needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution, in the dynamic environment Excite Home has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Excite Home has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution HBR case study mentions - Excite Home takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
High dependence on 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 Excite Home supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Excite Home vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Excite Home 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution, it seems that the employees of Excite Home 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 Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution | 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 Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Excite Home in the consumer business. Now Excite Home can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Excite Home can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Excite Home can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Excite Home in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Strategy & Execution segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Excite Home is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution 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 Strategy & Execution industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Excite Home 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. Excite Home 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Excite Home 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Excite Home 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 Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Excite Home to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Excite Home 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 Strategy & Execution segment.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Strategy & Execution industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Excite Home can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Excite Home can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Excite Home 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Excite Home has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Excite Home to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution case study. Excite Home can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution are -
Regulatory challenges
– Excite Home 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 Strategy & Execution industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Excite Home has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Excite Home needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Strategy & Execution 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.
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 Excite Home in the Strategy & Execution 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. Excite Home needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Excite Home 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Excite Home with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Strategy & Execution field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Excite Home can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Excite Home 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.
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 Excite Home.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Excite Home 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 Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution .
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Excite Home 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.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Excite Home is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution 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 Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution 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 Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution 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 Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution 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 Excite@Home: Betting on a Broadband Revolution 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 Excite Home needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
