GAME Digital (GMDG) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Retail (Specialty)
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for GAME Digital (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , GAME Digital is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, increasing commodity prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that GAME Digital can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the GAME Digital, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which GAME Digital 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 GAME Digital can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of GAME Digital
2. Improving business portfolio management of GAME Digital
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Retail (Specialty) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of GAME Digital
Strengths of GAME Digital | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of GAME Digital are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of GAME Digital in Retail (Specialty) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– GAME Digital has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Retail (Specialty) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of GAME Digital have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Retail (Specialty)
– GAME Digital is one of the leading players in the Retail (Specialty) industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Retail (Specialty) industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled GAME Digital in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- GAME Digital 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 GAME Digital is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at GAME Digital emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of GAME Digital in the Services sector have low bargaining power. GAME Digital has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps GAME Digital to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– GAME Digital has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. GAME Digital 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.
Organizational Resilience of GAME Digital
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing GAME Digital 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 Retail (Specialty) industry
– GAME Digital is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– GAME Digital is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Retail (Specialty) 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 recruit top talent
– GAME Digital is one of the leading players in the Retail (Specialty) 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of GAME Digital comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Specialty) 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– GAME Digital is present in almost all the verticals within the Retail (Specialty) industry. This has provided GAME Digital 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.
Weaknesses of GAME Digital | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of GAME Digital are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, GAME Digital has high operating costs in the Retail (Specialty) industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract GAME Digital lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Retail (Specialty) industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, GAME Digital is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Retail (Specialty) industry.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, GAME Digital is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help GAME Digital to provide better information regarding Retail (Specialty) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at GAME Digital, in the dynamic environment of Retail (Specialty) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. GAME Digital has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Retail (Specialty) industry, GAME Digital 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.
Need for greater diversity
– GAME Digital 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of GAME Digital products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, GAME Digital needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, GAME Digital needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on GAME Digital ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of GAME Digital still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Retail (Specialty) industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though GAME Digital has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As GAME Digital is one of the leading players in the Retail (Specialty) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Retail (Specialty) industry in last five years.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of GAME Digital is just above the Retail (Specialty) 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.
GAME Digital Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of GAME Digital are -
Loyalty marketing
– GAME Digital 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
– GAME Digital can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Specialty) 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
– GAME Digital has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Retail (Specialty) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled GAME Digital to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help GAME Digital to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Retail (Specialty) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for GAME Digital in the Retail (Specialty) industry. Now GAME Digital can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, GAME Digital is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. GAME Digital can utilize new technology in the field of Retail (Specialty) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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, GAME Digital can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that GAME Digital operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Retail (Specialty) sector.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for GAME Digital in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Retail (Specialty) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for GAME Digital to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for GAME Digital 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 GAME Digital 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 GAME Digital 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, GAME Digital 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 GAME Digital to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Manufacturing automation
– GAME Digital can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Retail (Specialty) 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 GAME Digital has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Retail (Specialty) industry. This can help GAME Digital to build a more holistic ecosystem for GAME Digital products in the Retail (Specialty) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats GAME Digital External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of GAME Digital are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– GAME Digital 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.
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. GAME Digital 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.
Regulatory challenges
– GAME Digital 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 Retail (Specialty) industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, GAME Digital 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 GAME Digital prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Retail (Specialty) industry are lowering. It can presents GAME Digital with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Retail (Specialty) sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for GAME Digital in Retail (Specialty) industry. The Retail (Specialty) 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 GAME Digital
– 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 GAME Digital.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– GAME Digital 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 Retail (Specialty) industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Retail (Specialty) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. GAME Digital can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, GAME Digital may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Retail (Specialty) 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 GAME Digital in the Retail (Specialty) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– GAME Digital has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Retail (Specialty) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, GAME Digital needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Retail (Specialty) sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of GAME Digital Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at GAME Digital 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 GAME Digital 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 GAME Digital 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 GAME Digital 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 GAME Digital needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
