Moko Media (MKB) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Retail (Catalog & Mail Order)
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Moko Media (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Moko Media is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Moko Media can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Moko Media, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Moko 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.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Moko Media can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Moko Media
2. Improving business portfolio management of Moko Media
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Moko Media
Strengths of Moko Media | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Moko Media are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Moko 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Moko Media in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Strong track record of project management in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry
– Moko 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.
Analytics focus
– Moko 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. The technology infrastructure of Australia 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Moko Media in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Moko Media has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Moko Media to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Moko Media is one of the most innovative firm in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Moko Media has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Moko Media have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Moko 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Moko Media comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Moko Media 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Moko Media is present in almost all the verticals within the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. This has provided Moko 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry
– Moko Media has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Moko Media to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Moko Media to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Moko Media | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Moko Media are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Moko Media 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Moko Media strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Moko 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Moko Media 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry using digital technology.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Moko Media needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Moko Media is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry, but Moko Media needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Moko Media to focus more on services in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Moko 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry.
Skills based hiring in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Moko 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Moko Media is just above the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry, Moko Media 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Moko Media has some of the most successful models in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Moko Media should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Need for greater diversity
– Moko Media 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.
Moko Media Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Moko Media are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Moko Media in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. Now Moko Media 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 Moko Media to increase its market reach. Moko Media 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Moko 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Moko Media can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Moko Media can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Moko Media can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Moko Media has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Moko Media to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Moko Media to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Moko 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 Moko Media to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Moko Media 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Moko Media is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Moko Media can utilize new technology in the field of Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Moko Media 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. Moko Media 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Moko Media 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.
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 Moko 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.
Threats Moko Media External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Moko Media are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Moko 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Moko 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.
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 Moko Media in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Moko Media needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Moko 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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 Moko Media business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Moko Media 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. Moko Media can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Moko Media can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Moko Media is facing in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Moko Media 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 Moko Media prominent markets.
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.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Moko Media has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Moko Media needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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 Moko Media Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Moko 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 Moko 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 Moko 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 Moko 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 Moko Media needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.