Metropole TV (0MGL) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Broadcasting & Cable TV
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Metropole TV (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Metropole TV is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Metropole TV can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Metropole TV, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Metropole TV 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 Metropole TV can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Metropole TV
2. Improving business portfolio management of Metropole TV
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Broadcasting & Cable TV sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Metropole TV
Strengths of Metropole TV | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Metropole TV are -
Innovation driven organization
– Metropole TV is one of the most innovative firm in Broadcasting & Cable TV sector.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Metropole TV has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Metropole TV staying ahead in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Metropole TV has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Metropole TV 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Metropole TV is present in almost all the verticals within the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. This has provided Metropole TV 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Metropole TV 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.
Digital Transformation in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Metropole TV digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Metropole TV 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 Metropole TV
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Metropole TV does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Metropole TV 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 Metropole TV is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Metropole TV emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Metropole TV in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Metropole TV has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Metropole TV to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Metropole TV in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Metropole TV has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Metropole TV have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Metropole TV comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Broadcasting & Cable TV 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.
Weaknesses of Metropole TV | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Metropole TV are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Metropole TV 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV industry.
Need for greater diversity
– Metropole TV 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Metropole TV 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Metropole TV has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Metropole TV 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV 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 Metropole TV supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Metropole TV is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Metropole TV vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Metropole TV is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry, but Metropole TV needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Metropole TV to focus more on services in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of Metropole TV strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Metropole TV 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Metropole TV, in the dynamic environment of Broadcasting & Cable TV industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Metropole TV has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Metropole TV is just above the Broadcasting & Cable TV 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Metropole TV is one of the leading players in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry in last five years.
Metropole TV Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Metropole TV are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Metropole TV 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV industry.
Manufacturing automation
– Metropole TV can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Broadcasting & Cable TV 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Metropole TV has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. This can help Metropole TV to build a more holistic ecosystem for Metropole TV products in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Metropole TV can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help Metropole TV to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Metropole TV can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Metropole TV 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 Metropole TV to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Metropole TV can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Metropole TV operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Broadcasting & Cable TV sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Metropole TV 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. Metropole TV 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Metropole TV can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Metropole TV is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Metropole TV can utilize new technology in the field of Broadcasting & Cable TV industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Metropole TV 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Metropole TV can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Broadcasting & Cable TV 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Metropole TV in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Metropole TV External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Metropole TV are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Metropole TV 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Metropole TV can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Broadcasting & Cable TV industry are lowering. It can presents Metropole TV with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Broadcasting & Cable TV sector.
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 Metropole TV in the Broadcasting & Cable TV sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Metropole TV business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Metropole TV 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.
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 Metropole TV.
Environmental challenges
– Metropole TV 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. Metropole TV can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry.
Increasing wage structure of Metropole TV
– 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 Metropole TV.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Metropole TV in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. The Broadcasting & Cable TV 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Metropole TV has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Metropole TV needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Broadcasting & Cable TV 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Metropole TV 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 Metropole TV prominent markets.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Metropole TV 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Metropole TV Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Metropole TV 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 Metropole TV 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 Metropole TV 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 Metropole TV 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 Metropole TV needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.