Live Nation Faces the Music SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Live Nation Faces the Music
In 2008, concert producer and promoter Live Nation, faces a decision about its strategy in light of the tumultuous changes in the music industry and the increasing power of the major artists. As the music business once again recreates itself in response to new technologies and consumer needs, this major player is considering focusing on its principal business of concert booking and related revenue, or moving forward with its efforts to take advantage of new opportunities in the music industry by forging comprehensive, and often expensive, relationships with artists and other clients.
Authors :: Stephen P. Bradley, Frank V. Cespedes, Kerry Herman
Swot Analysis of "Live Nation Faces the Music" written by Stephen P. Bradley, Frank V. Cespedes, Kerry Herman includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Music Concert facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Live Nation Faces the Music case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Competitive strategy, Corporate governance, Decision making, Entrepreneurship and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Live Nation Faces the Music casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, 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, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Live Nation Faces the Music
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Live Nation Faces the Music case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Music Concert, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Music Concert 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 Live Nation Faces the Music can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Live Nation Faces the Music case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Music Concert
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 Music Concert
Strengths Live Nation Faces the Music | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Music Concert in Live Nation Faces the Music Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– Music Concert 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
– Live Nation Faces the Music firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Music Concert to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Music Concert to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Music Concert 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 Live Nation Faces the Music - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Music Concert 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 Music Concert is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Live Nation Faces the Music Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Music Concert is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Live Nation Faces the Music 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 Music Concert 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Music Concert in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Music Concert digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Music Concert 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Music Concert 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 Live Nation Faces the Music HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Music Concert is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Live Nation Faces the Music 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Music Concert is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Live Nation Faces the Music Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Analytics focus
– Music Concert 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, Frank V. Cespedes, Kerry Herman 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.
Weaknesses Live Nation Faces the Music | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Live Nation Faces the Music are -
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Live Nation Faces the Music, 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Music Concert is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Live Nation Faces the Music can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Live Nation Faces the Music, in the dynamic environment Music Concert has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Music Concert has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Live Nation Faces the Music, it seems that the employees of Music Concert 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Music Concert 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Music Concert 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Live Nation Faces the Music 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 Music Concert 's lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Live Nation Faces the Music, is just above the industry average. Music Concert 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Music Concert, firm in the HBR case study Live Nation Faces the Music needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Music Concert 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Music Concert has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Opportunities Live Nation Faces the Music | 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 Live Nation Faces the Music are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Music Concert 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.
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. Music Concert 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. Music Concert 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
– Music Concert 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Music Concert 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 Music Concert to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Music Concert can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Music Concert can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Music Concert to increase its market reach. Music Concert 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Music Concert can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Live Nation Faces the Music 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.
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. Music Concert can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Music Concert has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Music Concert to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Live Nation Faces the Music case study. Music Concert can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Music Concert 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Music Concert 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 Live Nation Faces the Music - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Music Concert to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Music Concert 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.
Threats Live Nation Faces the Music External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Live Nation Faces the Music are -
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. Music Concert 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Live Nation Faces the Music, Music Concert 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 .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Music Concert 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Music Concert 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.
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.
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. Music Concert 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, Music Concert 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 Live Nation Faces the Music .
Environmental challenges
– Music Concert 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. Music Concert can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Music Concert 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Music Concert is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Music Concert 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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Music Concert with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Live Nation Faces the Music 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 Live Nation Faces the Music 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 Live Nation Faces the Music 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 Live Nation Faces the Music 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 Live Nation Faces the Music 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 Music Concert needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.