Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Gamma Communications PLC is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing,
increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Gamma Communications PLC
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Gamma Communications PLC can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Gamma Communications PLC, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Gamma Communications PLC 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 Gamma Communications PLC can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Gamma Communications PLC
2. Improving business portfolio management of Gamma Communications PLC
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 Gamma Communications PLC
Strengths of Gamma Communications PLC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Gamma Communications PLC are -
Organizational Resilience of Gamma Communications PLC
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Gamma Communications PLC does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Gamma Communications PLC 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Gamma Communications PLC 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 Gamma Communications PLC have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Gamma Communications PLC has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Gamma Communications PLC to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Gamma Communications PLC has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Gamma Communications PLC 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Gamma Communications PLC in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Gamma Communications PLC has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Gamma Communications PLC to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Communications Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Gamma Communications PLC digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Gamma Communications PLC 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.
Analytics focus
– Gamma Communications PLC 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 Communications Services industry. The technology infrastructure of United Kingdom 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.
Ability to lead change in Communications Services
– Gamma Communications PLC 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 Gamma Communications PLC in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Gamma Communications PLC is present in almost all the verticals within the Communications Services industry. This has provided Gamma Communications PLC 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Gamma Communications PLC in Communications Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Gamma Communications PLC 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 Gamma Communications PLC is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Gamma Communications PLC emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Gamma Communications PLC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Gamma Communications PLC are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Gamma Communications PLC has high operating costs in the Communications Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Gamma Communications PLC lucrative customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Gamma Communications PLC products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Gamma Communications PLC needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ less understanding of Gamma Communications PLC strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Gamma Communications PLC 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Communications Services industry, Gamma Communications PLC 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 Gamma Communications PLC 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. Gamma Communications PLC should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on Gamma Communications PLC ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Gamma Communications PLC still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Communications Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Gamma Communications PLC has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Gamma Communications PLC 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Gamma Communications PLC 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 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 Gamma Communications PLC supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Gamma Communications PLC is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Gamma Communications PLC vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Gamma Communications PLC needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Communications Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Gamma Communications PLC can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Gamma Communications PLC is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Gamma Communications PLC, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Communications Services 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.
Gamma Communications PLC Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Gamma Communications PLC are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Gamma Communications PLC 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Gamma Communications PLC has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Communications Services industry. This can help Gamma Communications PLC to build a more holistic ecosystem for Gamma Communications PLC products in the Communications Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Gamma Communications PLC 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Gamma Communications PLC can develop new processes and procedures in Communications Services 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Gamma Communications PLC to increase its market reach. Gamma Communications PLC 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.
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 Gamma Communications PLC 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Gamma Communications PLC can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Gamma Communications PLC 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 Gamma Communications PLC to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Gamma Communications PLC 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 Gamma Communications PLC to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Gamma Communications PLC 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.
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. Gamma Communications PLC 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. Gamma Communications PLC 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.
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. Gamma Communications PLC can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Gamma Communications PLC 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 Gamma Communications PLC to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Gamma Communications PLC to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Gamma Communications PLC External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Gamma Communications PLC are -
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Gamma Communications PLC 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Gamma Communications PLC 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 Gamma Communications PLC 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.
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 Gamma Communications PLC.
Environmental challenges
– Gamma Communications PLC 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. Gamma Communications PLC can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Communications Services industry.
Increasing wage structure of Gamma Communications PLC
– 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 Gamma Communications PLC.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Communications Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Gamma Communications PLC can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Gamma Communications PLC may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Communications Services sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Gamma Communications PLC 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 Gamma Communications PLC prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Gamma Communications PLC 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.
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 Gamma Communications PLC in the Communications Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Gamma Communications PLC Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Gamma Communications PLC 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 Gamma Communications PLC 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 Gamma Communications PLC 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 Gamma Communications PLC 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 Gamma Communications PLC needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.