Il Sole 24 Ore (S24) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Printing & Publishing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Il Sole 24 Ore (Italy)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Il Sole 24 Ore is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Il Sole 24 Ore can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Il Sole 24 Ore, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Il Sole 24 Ore 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 Il Sole 24 Ore can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Il Sole 24 Ore
2. Improving business portfolio management of Il Sole 24 Ore
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Italy
4. Making a Printing & Publishing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Il Sole 24 Ore
Strengths of Il Sole 24 Ore | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Il Sole 24 Ore are -
Training and development
– Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Il Sole 24 Ore has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
Digital Transformation in Printing & Publishing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Il Sole 24 Ore digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Il Sole 24 Ore has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Printing & Publishing industry
– Il Sole 24 Ore is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Il Sole 24 Ore
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Il Sole 24 Ore does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Il Sole 24 Ore is one of the most innovative firm in Printing & Publishing sector.
Analytics focus
– Il Sole 24 Ore 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 Italy 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.
Learning organization
- Il Sole 24 Ore 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 Il Sole 24 Ore is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Il Sole 24 Ore emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Il Sole 24 Ore is one of the leading players in the Printing & Publishing industry in Italy. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Italy. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
Weaknesses of Il Sole 24 Ore | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Il Sole 24 Ore are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Il Sole 24 Ore strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Il Sole 24 Ore 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 Printing & Publishing industry using digital technology.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Il Sole 24 Ore has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Printing & Publishing industry over the last five years. Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Printing & Publishing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Italy, Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Italy, Il Sole 24 Ore needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Il Sole 24 Ore is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Il Sole 24 Ore to provide better information regarding Printing & Publishing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Il Sole 24 Ore has some of the most successful models in the Printing & Publishing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Il Sole 24 Ore should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring in Printing & Publishing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Il Sole 24 Ore, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Printing & Publishing 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.
Il Sole 24 Ore Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Il Sole 24 Ore are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Il Sole 24 Ore can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
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 Il Sole 24 Ore in the Printing & Publishing industry. Now Il Sole 24 Ore can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Il Sole 24 Ore to increase its market reach. Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Il Sole 24 Ore can develop new processes and procedures in Printing & Publishing 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Printing & Publishing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Il Sole 24 Ore 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. Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Il Sole 24 Ore has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Printing & Publishing industry. This can help Il Sole 24 Ore to build a more holistic ecosystem for Il Sole 24 Ore products in the Printing & Publishing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Il Sole 24 Ore can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Il Sole 24 Ore operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Printing & Publishing sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
Threats Il Sole 24 Ore External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Il Sole 24 Ore are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
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 Il Sole 24 Ore in the Printing & Publishing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Il Sole 24 Ore 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. Il Sole 24 Ore can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Printing & Publishing industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
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. Il Sole 24 Ore 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Il Sole 24 Ore 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 Il Sole 24 Ore prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Printing & Publishing industry are lowering. It can presents Il Sole 24 Ore with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Printing & Publishing sector.
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. Il Sole 24 Ore can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Il Sole 24 Ore business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Il Sole 24 Ore needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Printing & Publishing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Il Sole 24 Ore
– 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 Il Sole 24 Ore.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Il Sole 24 Ore has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Printing & Publishing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Il Sole 24 Ore 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Il Sole 24 Ore Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Il Sole 24 Ore 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 Il Sole 24 Ore 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 Il Sole 24 Ore 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 Il Sole 24 Ore 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 Il Sole 24 Ore needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.