Diligent Media (DILG) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Diligent Media (India)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Diligent Media is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Diligent Media

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Diligent Media can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Diligent Media, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Diligent Media 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 Diligent Media can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Diligent Media
2. Improving business portfolio management of Diligent Media
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Printing & Publishing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Diligent Media

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Strengths of Diligent Media | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Diligent Media are -

Digital Transformation in Printing & Publishing industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Diligent Media digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Diligent Media 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.

Organizational Resilience of Diligent Media

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

Ability to recruit top talent

– Diligent Media is one of the leading players in the Printing & Publishing 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Diligent Media in Printing & Publishing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Highly skilled collaborators

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

Analytics focus

– Diligent Media 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 Printing & Publishing 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 switching costs

– The high switching costs that Diligent Media 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Diligent Media is present in almost all the verticals within the Printing & Publishing industry. This has provided Diligent Media 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.

Learning organization

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

Strong track record of project management in the Printing & Publishing industry

– Diligent Media is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

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

Training and development

– Diligent Media 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.

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Weaknesses of Diligent Media | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Diligent Media are -

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Diligent Media has high operating costs in the Printing & Publishing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Diligent Media lucrative customers.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Printing & Publishing industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in India, Diligent Media 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 Printing & Publishing industry.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Diligent Media, in the dynamic environment of Printing & Publishing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Diligent Media has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Low market penetration in new markets

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

High dependence on Diligent Media ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Diligent Media still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Printing & Publishing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Diligent Media has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

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

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Diligent Media is just above the Printing & Publishing industry average. It 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.

Skills based hiring in Printing & Publishing industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Diligent Media 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 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 Diligent Media supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Diligent Media is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Diligent Media vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Diligent Media is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Diligent Media to provide better information regarding Printing & Publishing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Employees’ less understanding of Diligent Media strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Diligent Media 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.

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Diligent Media Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Diligent Media are -

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Diligent Media 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Diligent Media in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Printing & Publishing 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 Diligent Media 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 Diligent Media to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Manufacturing automation

– Diligent Media can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Printing & Publishing sector. 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

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

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Diligent Media 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 Printing & Publishing industry.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Printing & Publishing industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Diligent Media in the Printing & Publishing industry. Now Diligent Media can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Diligent Media has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Printing & Publishing industry. This can help Diligent Media to build a more holistic ecosystem for Diligent Media products in the Printing & Publishing 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. Diligent Media can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Diligent Media can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Increase in government spending

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

Buying journey improvements

– Diligent Media can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Printing & Publishing 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.

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 Diligent Media 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.

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Threats Diligent Media External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Diligent Media are -

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Printing & Publishing industry are lowering. It can presents Diligent Media with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Printing & Publishing sector.

Increasing wage structure of Diligent Media

– 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 Diligent Media.

Easy access to finance

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

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 Diligent Media in the Printing & Publishing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Diligent Media 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 Printing & Publishing industry and other sectors.

Learning curve for new practices

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

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 Diligent Media business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Diligent Media is facing in Printing & Publishing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Diligent Media 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.

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. Diligent Media 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Diligent Media has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Printing & Publishing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Diligent Media needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Printing & Publishing 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.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Diligent Media in Printing & Publishing industry. The Printing & Publishing 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.

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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Diligent Media Template, Example

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

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