Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective
The net neutrality debate had implications for Internet service providers, content providers, and end users. This note aims to inform the reader of the various sides of the debate where open issues remain, and what aspects an entrepreneur, investor, or content provider-either an existing player, or a new entrant-should be aware of. From a management perspective, net neutrality rules could have major consequences on the business models of content providers, ISPs, and other businesses that depend on the transfer of data across the Internet.
Swot Analysis of "Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective" written by Shane Greenstein, Christine Snively includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Neutrality Providers facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, IT, Operations management, Strategy and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective casestudy better are - – wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Neutrality Providers, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Neutrality Providers 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 Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Neutrality Providers
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 Neutrality Providers
Strengths Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Neutrality Providers in Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective Harvard Business Review case study are -
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Neutrality Providers digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Neutrality Providers 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.
Analytics focus
– Neutrality Providers 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 Shane Greenstein, Christine Snively 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Neutrality Providers is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Neutrality Providers is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective 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 Neutrality Providers 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Neutrality Providers is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Neutrality Providers 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 Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective 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 Strategy & Execution industry
– Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Neutrality Providers to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Neutrality Providers to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Neutrality Providers 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 Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Neutrality Providers in the sector have low bargaining power. Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Neutrality Providers to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Neutrality Providers has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective 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 Neutrality Providers in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Neutrality Providers 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. Neutrality Providers 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Shane Greenstein, Christine Snively suggests that, Neutrality Providers 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective 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 Neutrality Providers has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective 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 Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Neutrality Providers is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Neutrality Providers 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 - Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Neutrality Providers 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective, is just above the industry average. Neutrality Providers 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective, it seems that the employees of Neutrality Providers 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Neutrality Providers, firm in the HBR case study Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Neutrality Providers 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Strategy & Execution 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.
Opportunities Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective | 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 Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Neutrality Providers 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 Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Neutrality Providers to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Neutrality Providers to increase its market reach. Neutrality Providers 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.
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 Neutrality Providers in the consumer business. Now Neutrality Providers can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Developing new processes and practices
– Neutrality Providers can develop new processes and procedures in Strategy & Execution 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Neutrality Providers 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Neutrality Providers can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective 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.
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. Neutrality Providers can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Neutrality Providers 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. Neutrality Providers 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, Neutrality Providers can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Neutrality Providers operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Neutrality Providers is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Neutrality Providers 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 Neutrality Providers to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Neutrality Providers has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Neutrality Providers to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective case study. Neutrality Providers can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Neutrality Providers 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.
Threats Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Neutrality Providers 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Neutrality Providers has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Neutrality Providers 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.
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. Neutrality Providers can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Neutrality Providers in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Neutrality Providers 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.
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 Neutrality Providers.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Neutrality Providers in the Strategy & Execution industry. The Strategy & Execution industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Regulatory challenges
– Neutrality Providers 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Neutrality Providers is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Neutrality Providers needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Neutrality Providers 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 Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective 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 Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective 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 Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective 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 Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective 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 Net Neutrality: A Managerial Perspective 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 Neutrality Providers needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.