FFI (FFIF) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for FFI (United Kingdom)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , FFI is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of FFI

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

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

The strengths of FFI are -

Analytics focus

– FFI 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 Motion Pictures 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.

Training and development

– FFI 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.

Innovation driven organization

– FFI is one of the most innovative firm in Motion Pictures sector.

Learning organization

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

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the FFI 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

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

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that FFI 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.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Motion Pictures industry

– FFI has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled FFI to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Motion Pictures industry. The sustainable margins have also helped FFI to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Digital Transformation in Motion Pictures industry

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

Strong track record of project management in the Motion Pictures industry

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

High brand equity

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

Ability to recruit top talent

– FFI is one of the leading players in the Motion Pictures industry in United Kingdom. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United Kingdom. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

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

The weaknesses of FFI are -

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, FFI 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 Motion Pictures industry using digital technology.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of FFI, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Motion Pictures 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.

Products dominated business model

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

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, FFI has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Motion Pictures industry over the last five years. FFI 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, FFI needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, FFI has high operating costs in the Motion Pictures industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract FFI lucrative customers.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, FFI is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help FFI to provide better information regarding Motion Pictures products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Motion Pictures industry, FFI 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.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As FFI is one of the leading players in the Motion Pictures industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Motion Pictures industry in last five years.

High dependence on FFI ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of FFI still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Motion Pictures industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though FFI has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of FFI is just above the Motion Pictures 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.

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

The opportunities of FFI are -

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

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, FFI is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. FFI can utilize new technology in the field of Motion Pictures industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at FFI 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 Motion Pictures industry.

Creating value in data economy

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

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Motion Pictures industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. FFI 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. FFI 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– FFI 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.

Increase in government spending

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

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for FFI in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Motion Pictures industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Buying journey improvements

– FFI can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Motion Pictures 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.

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 FFI 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.

Loyalty marketing

– FFI 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.

Manufacturing automation

– FFI can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Motion Pictures 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.

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

The threats of FFI are -

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Motion Pictures industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. FFI can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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 FFI.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– FFI 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 Motion Pictures industry.

Consumer confidence and its impact on FFI 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 Motion Pictures industry and other sectors.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

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

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, FFI may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Motion Pictures sector.

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.

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. FFI needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Motion Pictures industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that FFI is facing in Motion Pictures sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

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.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for FFI in Motion Pictures industry. The Motion Pictures 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.

Increasing wage structure of FFI

– 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 FFI.

Barriers of entry lowering

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

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of FFI Template, Example

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

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