United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
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Case Study Description of United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened?
The United Daily News Group, a leader in Taiwan's media, faces the imminent death of the country's newspaper industry. The founder's grandson took over as the company's chair just four years earlier, during a time when an increasing number of readers were turning to the Internet for their news. Looking ahead, he needs to sustain the company's future development while recognizing that the business of running traditional newspapers may no longer be profitable. He needs to assess the company's strengths, integrate the group's resources, improve news content, introduce digital media and, in doing so, create a new business model. He wonders how to best initiate the integration of resources and which media innovations he should introduce.
Swot Analysis of "United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened?" written by Rueylin Hsiao, Jean-Louis Schaan includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that News Daily facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? casestudy better are - – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing energy prices, technology disruption, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization,
increasing commodity prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the News Daily, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which News Daily 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 United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of News Daily
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 News Daily
Strengths United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of News Daily in United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– News Daily is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled News Daily to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped News Daily to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– News Daily is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the News Daily 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– News Daily 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 United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– News Daily 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 Rueylin Hsiao, Jean-Louis Schaan 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.
Innovation driven organization
– News Daily is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For News Daily digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. News Daily 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– News Daily 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 United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of News Daily
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that News Daily does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- News Daily 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 News Daily is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– News Daily has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? 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 United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, News Daily 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? 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 News Daily 's lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened?, 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened?, it seems that the employees of News Daily 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though News Daily 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 - United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of News Daily products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, News Daily needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, News Daily 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened?, in the dynamic environment News Daily has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. News Daily has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, News Daily 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. News Daily 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, Rueylin Hsiao, Jean-Louis Schaan suggests that, News Daily 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 United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? 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 News Daily has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? | 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 United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? are -
Loyalty marketing
– News Daily 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.
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. News Daily can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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. News Daily can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Manufacturing automation
– News Daily can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Strategy & Execution 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– News Daily 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.
Buying journey improvements
– News Daily can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects News Daily can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– News Daily 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 United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help News Daily to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, News Daily is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? 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.
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 News Daily in the consumer business. Now News Daily can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of News Daily has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help News Daily to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? case study. News Daily can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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. News Daily 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. News Daily 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for News Daily 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 News Daily to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on News Daily 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
– News Daily 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents News Daily with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 News Daily business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that News Daily is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– News Daily 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. News Daily can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened?, News Daily may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Strategy & Execution .
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 News Daily 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– News Daily 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.
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. News Daily needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 News Daily.
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. News Daily can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? 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 United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? 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 United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? 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 United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? 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 United Daily News Group (C): UDN Shopping - What Happened? 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 News Daily needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.