Sky Network Television (SKT) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sky Network Television (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sky Network Television is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
increasing energy prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Sky Network Television
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Sky Network Television can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sky Network Television, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sky Network Television 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 Sky Network Television can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sky Network Television
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sky Network Television
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Sky Network Television
Strengths of Sky Network Television | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sky Network Television are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Sky Network Television comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
Learning organization
- Sky Network Television 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 Sky Network Television is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Sky Network Television emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sky Network Television has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Sky Network Television staying ahead in the 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 industry
– Sky Network Television is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Sky Network Television is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sky Network Television are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Training and development
– Sky Network Television has one of the best training and development program in 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.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Sky Network Television digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Sky Network Television 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Sky Network Television has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sky Network Television to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sky Network Television to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Sky Network Television has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sky Network Television to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Sky Network Television is one of the leading players in the industry in Australia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Australia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Ability to lead change in
– Sky Network Television is one of the leading players in the industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Sky Network Television in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Sky Network Television | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sky Network Television are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Sky Network Television 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Sky Network Television 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Sky Network Television strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Sky Network Television 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Sky Network Television is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Sky Network Television to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Sky Network Television has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Sky Network Television 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Sky Network Television, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sky Network Television has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Sky Network Television 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 industry using digital technology.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Sky Network Television has high operating costs in the industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Sky Network Television lucrative customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Sky Network Television 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Sky Network Television is just above the 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Sky Network Television products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Sky Network Television needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Sky Network Television Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Sky Network Television are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sky Network Television 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Sky Network Television 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.
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. Sky Network Television can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Manufacturing automation
– Sky Network Television can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sky Network Television can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Sky Network Television to increase its market reach. Sky Network Television 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sky Network Television 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 industry.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sky Network Television has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Sky Network Television to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sky Network Television to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sky Network Television can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sky Network Television operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sky Network Television is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sky Network Television can utilize new technology in the field of industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Sky Network Television 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Sky Network Television 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. Sky Network Television 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, Sky Network Television 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 Sky Network Television External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Sky Network Television are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Sky Network Television with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Sky Network Television 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 industry regulations.
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 Sky Network Television in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sky Network Television 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 industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sky Network Television is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Sky Network Television can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Sky Network Television 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.
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 Sky Network Television business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Sky Network Television 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. Sky Network Television can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sky Network Television 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 industry and other sectors.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Sky Network Television may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
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 Sky Network Television.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sky Network Television Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Sky Network Television 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 Sky Network Television 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 Sky Network Television 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 Sky Network Television 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 Sky Network Television needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.