SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Balaji Telefilms (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Balaji Telefilms is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Balaji Telefilms can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Balaji Telefilms, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Balaji Telefilms 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 Balaji Telefilms can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Balaji Telefilms
2. Improving business portfolio management of Balaji Telefilms
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Motion Pictures sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Balaji Telefilms
Strengths of Balaji Telefilms | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Balaji Telefilms are -
Analytics focus
– Balaji Telefilms 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 Motion Pictures industry. The technology infrastructure of India is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
High brand equity
– Balaji Telefilms has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Balaji Telefilms to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Motion Pictures
– Balaji Telefilms is one of the leading players in the Motion Pictures industry in India. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Motion Pictures industry in India but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Balaji Telefilms in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Balaji Telefilms in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Balaji Telefilms has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Balaji Telefilms to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Balaji Telefilms 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Balaji Telefilms has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Balaji Telefilms 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.
Learning organization
- Balaji Telefilms 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 Balaji Telefilms is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Balaji Telefilms emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Balaji Telefilms 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.
Training and development
– Balaji Telefilms has one of the best training and development program in Services industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Balaji Telefilms is one of the leading players in the Motion Pictures industry in India. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in India. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Motion Pictures industry
– Balaji Telefilms has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Balaji Telefilms to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Motion Pictures industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Balaji Telefilms to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Balaji Telefilms is present in almost all the verticals within the Motion Pictures industry. This has provided Balaji Telefilms 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.
Weaknesses of Balaji Telefilms | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Balaji Telefilms are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Balaji Telefilms 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 Motion Pictures industry using digital technology.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Balaji Telefilms, in the dynamic environment of Motion Pictures industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Balaji Telefilms has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Balaji Telefilms has high operating costs in the Motion Pictures industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Balaji Telefilms lucrative customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Balaji Telefilms products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Balaji Telefilms needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Balaji Telefilms, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Motion Pictures industry. 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Motion Pictures industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in India, Balaji Telefilms 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 Motion Pictures industry.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Balaji Telefilms has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Motion Pictures 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, Balaji Telefilms 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Balaji Telefilms strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Balaji Telefilms 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Motion Pictures industry, Balaji Telefilms 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Balaji Telefilms is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Motion Pictures industry, but Balaji Telefilms needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Balaji Telefilms to focus more on services in the Motion Pictures industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Balaji Telefilms Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Balaji Telefilms are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Balaji Telefilms is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Balaji Telefilms can utilize new technology in the field of Motion Pictures industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Balaji Telefilms 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 Balaji Telefilms to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Motion Pictures industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Balaji Telefilms can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Balaji Telefilms can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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 Balaji Telefilms 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Balaji Telefilms 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Balaji Telefilms can develop new processes and procedures in Motion Pictures 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Balaji Telefilms to increase its market reach. Balaji Telefilms 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
– Balaji Telefilms can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Motion Pictures industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Balaji Telefilms in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Motion Pictures industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Balaji Telefilms 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Balaji Telefilms can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Balaji Telefilms operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Motion Pictures sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Motion Pictures industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Balaji Telefilms 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. Balaji Telefilms 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.
Threats Balaji Telefilms External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Balaji Telefilms are -
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.
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 Balaji Telefilms in the Motion Pictures sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Balaji Telefilms 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 Motion Pictures industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Motion Pictures industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Balaji Telefilms 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
– Balaji Telefilms 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. Balaji Telefilms can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Motion Pictures industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Balaji Telefilms in Motion Pictures industry. The Motion Pictures 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
– Balaji Telefilms has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Motion Pictures industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Balaji Telefilms needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Motion Pictures 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.
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 Balaji Telefilms business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Balaji Telefilms 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.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Balaji Telefilms 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 Balaji Telefilms prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Balaji Telefilms
– 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 Balaji Telefilms.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Balaji Telefilms 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 Motion Pictures industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Balaji Telefilms Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Balaji Telefilms 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 Balaji Telefilms 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 Balaji Telefilms 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 Balaji Telefilms 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 Balaji Telefilms needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
