RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader
In 2016, a recent business graduate entered the workforce as the manager of a radio station in a small town. His new employer, RSM Broadcasting, led the way in serving small Canadian communities and took steps to provide radio content in the most relevant way possible, but it might be time to quicken the pace. He faced a number of obstacles because the industry had been changing and internal politics made it challenging to enact any of his own ideas for strategic renewal. He had three options: support a current initiative, bolster his own idea for change, or focus on his own development. His newness to the organization, his youth, and his position as a middle manager could get in the way of promoting change in the short-term.
Swot Analysis of "RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader" written by Cara C. Maurer includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Rsm Broadcasting facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Technology and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Rsm Broadcasting, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Rsm Broadcasting 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 RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Rsm Broadcasting
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Rsm Broadcasting
Strengths RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Rsm Broadcasting in RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Rsm Broadcasting in the sector have low bargaining power. RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Rsm Broadcasting to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– Rsm Broadcasting 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 Cara C. Maurer 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Rsm Broadcasting to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Rsm Broadcasting to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Rsm Broadcasting 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 Rsm Broadcasting is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Rsm Broadcasting has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Rsm Broadcasting to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Rsm Broadcasting is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader 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.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Rsm Broadcasting digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Rsm Broadcasting 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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Rsm Broadcasting 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 Rsm Broadcasting in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management
– Rsm Broadcasting 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 Rsm Broadcasting in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Rsm Broadcasting 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 RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Rsm Broadcasting 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 RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader are -
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Rsm Broadcasting 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Cara C. Maurer suggests that, Rsm Broadcasting 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader, is just above the industry average. Rsm Broadcasting 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Rsm Broadcasting is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Rsm Broadcasting, firm in the HBR case study RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader, in the dynamic environment Rsm Broadcasting has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Rsm Broadcasting 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, Rsm Broadcasting 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. Rsm Broadcasting 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Rsm Broadcasting products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Rsm Broadcasting needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader HBR case study mentions - Rsm Broadcasting 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Rsm Broadcasting has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Rsm Broadcasting 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.
Opportunities RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader | 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 RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Rsm Broadcasting 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 RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Rsm Broadcasting to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Rsm Broadcasting in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Leadership & Managing People 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 Leadership & Managing People industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Rsm Broadcasting can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Rsm Broadcasting can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Rsm Broadcasting operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Rsm Broadcasting 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Rsm Broadcasting 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 Leadership & Managing People segment.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Rsm Broadcasting 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 Rsm Broadcasting to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Rsm Broadcasting can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Rsm Broadcasting can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Rsm Broadcasting 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Rsm Broadcasting can develop new processes and procedures in Leadership & Managing People 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Rsm Broadcasting is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Rsm Broadcasting can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader are -
Regulatory challenges
– Rsm Broadcasting 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 Leadership & Managing People industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of Rsm Broadcasting
– 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 Rsm Broadcasting.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Rsm Broadcasting 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Rsm Broadcasting can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader, Rsm Broadcasting may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Leadership & Managing People .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Rsm Broadcasting is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Rsm Broadcasting 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 RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Rsm Broadcasting has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Rsm Broadcasting needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Leadership & Managing People 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.
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. Rsm Broadcasting 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Rsm Broadcasting in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The Leadership & Managing People 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.
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 Rsm Broadcasting business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Rsm Broadcasting in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Rsm Broadcasting 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader 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 RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader 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 RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader 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 RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader 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 RSM Broadcasting: The First Steps of a New Leader 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 Rsm Broadcasting needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
