Birla Cable (BRLE) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Birla Cable (India)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Birla Cable is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Birla Cable

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Birla Cable can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Birla Cable, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Birla Cable 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Birla Cable can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Birla Cable
2. Improving business portfolio management of Birla Cable
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Communications Equipment sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Birla Cable

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Strengths of Birla Cable | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Birla Cable are -

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Birla Cable in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Birla Cable has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Birla Cable to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Learning organization

- Birla Cable 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 Birla Cable is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Birla Cable emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Birla Cable has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Communications Equipment industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Birla Cable have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Organizational Resilience of Birla Cable

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Birla Cable does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Ability to lead change in Communications Equipment

– Birla Cable is one of the leading players in the Communications Equipment industry in India. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Communications Equipment industry in India but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Birla Cable in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Birla Cable is one of the leading players in the Communications Equipment 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Birla Cable is present in almost all the verticals within the Communications Equipment industry. This has provided Birla Cable 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Birla Cable has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Birla Cable staying ahead in the Communications Equipment industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Birla Cable 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.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Birla Cable comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Communications Equipment 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 Communications Equipment industry

– Birla Cable has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Birla Cable to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Communications Equipment industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Birla Cable to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Birla Cable has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Birla Cable 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.

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Weaknesses of Birla Cable | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Birla Cable are -

Skills based hiring in Communications Equipment industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Birla Cable 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 operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Birla Cable has high operating costs in the Communications Equipment industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Birla Cable lucrative customers.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Birla Cable has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Communications Equipment industry over the last five years. Birla Cable 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.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Birla Cable is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Communications Equipment industry, but Birla Cable needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Birla Cable to focus more on services in the Communications Equipment industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Employees’ less understanding of Birla Cable strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Birla Cable 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of Birla Cable products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Birla Cable needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Birla Cable 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.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Birla Cable, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Communications Equipment 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.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Communications Equipment industry, Birla Cable 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.

Need for greater diversity

– Birla Cable 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of India, Birla Cable needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

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Birla Cable Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Birla Cable are -

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Birla Cable can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Birla Cable operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Communications Equipment sector.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Birla Cable has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Communications Equipment sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Birla Cable to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Birla Cable to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Buying journey improvements

– Birla Cable can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Communications Equipment 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Birla Cable can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Birla Cable in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Communications Equipment industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Birla Cable 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Birla Cable 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 Birla Cable 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 Communications Equipment industry.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Birla Cable 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Birla Cable has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Communications Equipment industry. This can help Birla Cable to build a more holistic ecosystem for Birla Cable products in the Communications Equipment industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

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. Birla Cable can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Communications Equipment industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Birla Cable 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 Birla Cable can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

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Threats Birla Cable External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Birla Cable are -

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Birla Cable in Communications Equipment industry. The Communications Equipment 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.

Regulatory challenges

– Birla Cable 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 Communications Equipment industry regulations.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Communications Equipment industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Birla Cable can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Birla Cable has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Communications Equipment industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Birla Cable needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Communications Equipment 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.

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. Birla Cable needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Communications Equipment industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Birla Cable 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 Communications Equipment industry.

Environmental challenges

– Birla Cable 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. Birla Cable can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Communications Equipment industry.

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. Birla Cable will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Birla Cable may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Communications Equipment sector.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Birla Cable 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 Birla Cable prominent markets.

Capital market disruption

– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Birla Cable.

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 Birla Cable in the Communications Equipment sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Birla Cable Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Birla Cable 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 Birla Cable 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 Birla Cable 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 Birla Cable 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 Birla Cable needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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