Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Technology & Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company
In April 1997, senior management at Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe (BPE) was focused on making the virtual company concept a reality. BPE was moving away from a confederation of national sales companies toward a number of geographically dispersed business teams serving all of Europe. An infrastructure was being put in place to support the teams. Immediate operational opportunities and challenges lay in the implementation of SAP System R/3, due to go live in a matter of weeks, and the radical re-engineering of BPE's supply chain. Key considerations were the increased use of air freight between Sony factories in Japan and BPE, the consolidation of BPE inventories in fewer locations, and the choice of a global logistics provider to partner with Sony BPE in the direct delivery of BPE products from its distribution centers to dealers within Europe. The case serves as a vehicle to discuss the transformation of bricks and mortar distribution systems to those needed to support e-business. A 2000 EFMD award winner.
Swot Analysis of "Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company" written by Robert S. Collins, Kimberly A. Bechler includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Bpe Sony facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leading teams, Marketing, Strategy execution, Supply chain and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Bpe Sony, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Bpe Sony 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 Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Bpe Sony
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Technology & Operations field.
4. Making a Technology & Operations topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Bpe Sony
Strengths Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Bpe Sony in Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Bpe Sony 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 Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Bpe Sony has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Bpe Sony to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Technology & Operations segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Bpe Sony digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Bpe Sony 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.
Training and development
– Bpe Sony has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Bpe Sony is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Bpe Sony in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Technology & Operations field
– Bpe Sony 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 Bpe Sony in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Bpe Sony is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Technology & Operations industry
– Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Bpe Sony to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Technology & Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Bpe Sony to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Bpe Sony has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Bpe Sony 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Bpe Sony in the sector have low bargaining power. Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Bpe Sony to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Bpe Sony is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Bpe Sony 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Robert S. Collins, Kimberly A. Bechler suggests that, Bpe Sony 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Bpe Sony 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 Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company, is just above the industry average. Bpe Sony 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Bpe Sony has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company HBR case study mentions - Bpe Sony 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Bpe Sony 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.
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 Bpe Sony supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Bpe Sony vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Bpe Sony 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company 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 Bpe Sony has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company | 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 Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company are -
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. Bpe Sony can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Bpe Sony to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Technology & Operations industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Bpe Sony can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Developing new processes and practices
– Bpe Sony can develop new processes and procedures in Technology & Operations 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Bpe Sony 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 Technology & Operations segment.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Bpe Sony 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
– Bpe Sony can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Bpe Sony is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Bpe Sony 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 Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Bpe Sony to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Bpe Sony can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Bpe Sony to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Technology & Operations industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Bpe Sony 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. Bpe Sony 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Bpe Sony 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 Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company, Bpe Sony may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Technology & Operations .
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. Bpe Sony needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Technology & Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Bpe Sony is facing in Technology & Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Bpe Sony business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Technology & Operations field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Bpe Sony can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Bpe Sony 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. Bpe Sony can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Bpe Sony in the Technology & Operations industry. The Technology & Operations 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.
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.
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 Bpe Sony in the Technology & Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Bpe Sony 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.
Increasing wage structure of Bpe Sony
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Bpe Sony.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Bpe Sony with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Bpe Sony 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company 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 Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company 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 Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company 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 Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company 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 Sony Broadcast and Professional Europe: Becoming a Virtual Company 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 Bpe Sony needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
