BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content?
Jonah Peretti, CEO of digital publishing company BuzzFeed, needs to decide how to respond to Facebook's announcement that it would prioritize posts from friends over content from publishers.
Swot Analysis of "BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content?" written by Felix Oberholzer-Gee includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Buzzfeed Peretti facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Strategy and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
increasing commodity prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Buzzfeed Peretti, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Buzzfeed Peretti 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 BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Buzzfeed Peretti
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Sales & Marketing field.
4. Making a Sales & Marketing topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Buzzfeed Peretti
Strengths BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Buzzfeed Peretti in BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Buzzfeed Peretti 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Buzzfeed Peretti is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Buzzfeed Peretti 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 Buzzfeed Peretti in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Training and development
– Buzzfeed Peretti has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Buzzfeed Peretti has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Buzzfeed Peretti 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Buzzfeed Peretti 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 BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Buzzfeed Peretti is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Strong track record of project management
– Buzzfeed Peretti is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High brand equity
– Buzzfeed Peretti has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Buzzfeed Peretti to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Buzzfeed Peretti 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 Buzzfeed Peretti is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Buzzfeed Peretti in the sector have low bargaining power. BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Buzzfeed Peretti to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– Buzzfeed Peretti 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 Felix Oberholzer-Gee 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 BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Buzzfeed Peretti products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Buzzfeed Peretti needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Buzzfeed Peretti, firm in the HBR case study BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content?, it seems that the employees of Buzzfeed Peretti 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Buzzfeed Peretti 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Buzzfeed Peretti 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Buzzfeed Peretti 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. Buzzfeed Peretti 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? 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 Buzzfeed Peretti has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Buzzfeed Peretti 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 - BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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 Buzzfeed Peretti supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content?, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Buzzfeed Peretti vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Felix Oberholzer-Gee suggests that, Buzzfeed Peretti 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Buzzfeed Peretti is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Buzzfeed Peretti needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Buzzfeed Peretti to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? | 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 BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? 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. Buzzfeed Peretti can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Developing new processes and practices
– Buzzfeed Peretti can develop new processes and procedures in Sales & Marketing 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 Buzzfeed Peretti 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 Sales & Marketing segment.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Buzzfeed Peretti can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Buzzfeed Peretti 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Sales & Marketing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Buzzfeed Peretti 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. Buzzfeed Peretti 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, Buzzfeed Peretti 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Buzzfeed Peretti 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 Buzzfeed Peretti to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Buzzfeed Peretti 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, BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content?, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Buzzfeed Peretti can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Buzzfeed Peretti operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Buzzfeed Peretti in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Sales & Marketing segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Sales & Marketing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Buzzfeed Peretti can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Buzzfeed Peretti is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? 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.
Threats BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Buzzfeed Peretti 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.
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. Buzzfeed Peretti needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing 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, Buzzfeed Peretti 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 BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? .
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. Buzzfeed Peretti 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Buzzfeed Peretti is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Buzzfeed Peretti 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 Sales & Marketing industry regulations.
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 Buzzfeed Peretti in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Buzzfeed Peretti in the Sales & Marketing industry. The Sales & Marketing 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Buzzfeed Peretti has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Buzzfeed Peretti needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Sales & Marketing 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 Sales & Marketing field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Buzzfeed Peretti 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
– Buzzfeed Peretti 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. Buzzfeed Peretti can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing 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 BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content?, Buzzfeed Peretti may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Sales & Marketing .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? 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 BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? 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 BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? 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 BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? 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 BuzzFeed - What Future for Native Advertising and Branded Content? 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 Buzzfeed Peretti needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
