Iliad (0MGY) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Iliad (United Kingdom)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Iliad is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, technology disruption, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Iliad

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

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

The strengths of Iliad are -

Organizational Resilience of Iliad

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

Strong track record of project management in the Communications Services industry

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

Digital Transformation in Communications Services industry

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

Highly skilled collaborators

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

High brand equity

– Iliad has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Iliad to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Innovation driven organization

– Iliad is one of the most innovative firm in Communications Services sector.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Iliad 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)

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

Learning organization

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

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Iliad 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.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Iliad comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Communications Services 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.

Ability to lead change in Communications Services

– Iliad is one of the leading players in the Communications Services industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Communications Services industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Iliad in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

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

The weaknesses of Iliad are -

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Iliad 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 Iliad has some of the most successful models in the Communications Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Iliad should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Skills based hiring in Communications Services industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Iliad 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of Iliad products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Iliad needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Employees’ less understanding of Iliad strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Iliad 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Iliad is just above the Communications Services 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 Communications Services industry, Iliad 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.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Iliad 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 Communications Services industry using digital technology.

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 Iliad supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Iliad is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Iliad vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Iliad has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Communications Services industry over the last five years. Iliad 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 cash cycle compare to competitors

Iliad has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Communications Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

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

The opportunities of Iliad are -

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Communications Services industry

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

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Iliad 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 Iliad to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Reforming the budgeting process

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

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 Iliad 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Iliad has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Communications Services industry. This can help Iliad to build a more holistic ecosystem for Iliad products in the Communications Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Loyalty marketing

– Iliad 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.

Increase in government spending

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

Buying journey improvements

– Iliad can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Communications Services 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

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

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Iliad to increase its market reach. Iliad 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.

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. Iliad can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Iliad 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 Communications Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Iliad 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. Iliad 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.

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

The threats of Iliad are -

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Iliad 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 Iliad prominent markets.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Iliad has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Communications Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Iliad needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Communications Services 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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Iliad 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 Communications Services industry.

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.

Regulatory challenges

– Iliad 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 Communications Services industry regulations.

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. Iliad 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.

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. Iliad needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Communications Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

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 Iliad in the Communications Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Iliad 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.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Iliad in Communications Services industry. The Communications Services 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.

Barriers of entry lowering

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

Increasing wage structure of Iliad

– 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 Iliad.

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

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Iliad Template, Example

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

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