Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Raj Tele is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Raj Tele can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Raj Tele, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Raj Tele 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 Raj Tele can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Raj Tele
2. Improving business portfolio management of Raj Tele
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Broadcasting & Cable TV sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Raj Tele
Strengths of Raj Tele | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Raj Tele are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Raj Tele comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Broadcasting & Cable TV 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Raj Tele is one of the most innovative firm in Broadcasting & Cable TV sector.
Training and development
– Raj Tele 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.
Analytics focus
– Raj Tele 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV 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.
Organizational Resilience of Raj Tele
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Raj Tele does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Raj Tele 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Raj Tele has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Raj Tele staying ahead in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– Raj Tele is present in almost all the verticals within the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. This has provided Raj Tele 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– Raj Tele has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Raj Tele to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Raj Tele to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– Raj Tele is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Raj Tele has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Raj Tele 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Raj Tele 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.
Weaknesses of Raj Tele | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Raj Tele are -
Employees’ less understanding of Raj Tele strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Raj Tele 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV industry, Raj Tele 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.
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 Raj Tele supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Raj Tele is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Raj Tele vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Skills based hiring in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Raj Tele 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of India, Raj Tele needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Raj Tele has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry over the last five years. Raj Tele 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Raj Tele has some of the most successful models in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Raj Tele should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Raj Tele products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Raj Tele needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Raj Tele 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV industry using digital technology.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in India, Raj Tele 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV industry.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Raj Tele, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Broadcasting & Cable TV 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.
Raj Tele Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Raj Tele are -
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 Raj Tele 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Raj Tele in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. Now Raj Tele can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Raj Tele 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV industry.
Developing new processes and practices
– Raj Tele can develop new processes and procedures in Broadcasting & Cable TV 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Raj Tele has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Broadcasting & Cable TV sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Raj Tele to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Raj Tele to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Raj Tele 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Raj Tele 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 Raj Tele to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– Raj Tele can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Broadcasting & Cable TV 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 Raj Tele in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Raj Tele 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 Raj Tele to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Raj Tele has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. This can help Raj Tele to build a more holistic ecosystem for Raj Tele products in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Raj Tele 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. Raj Tele 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, Raj Tele can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Threats Raj Tele External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Raj Tele are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Broadcasting & Cable TV industry are lowering. It can presents Raj Tele with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Broadcasting & Cable TV sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Raj Tele has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Raj Tele needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Broadcasting & Cable TV 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Raj Tele 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV industry regulations.
Environmental challenges
– Raj Tele 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. Raj Tele can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Raj Tele 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 Raj Tele prominent markets.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Raj Tele 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. Raj Tele needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Raj Tele 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.
Increasing wage structure of Raj Tele
– 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 Raj Tele.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Raj Tele can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Raj Tele in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. The Broadcasting & Cable TV 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.
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 Raj Tele in the Broadcasting & Cable TV sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Raj Tele Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Raj Tele 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 Raj Tele 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 Raj Tele 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 Raj Tele 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 Raj Tele needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.