Live Company (LVCG) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Live Company (United Kingdom)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Live Company is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Live Company

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

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

The strengths of Live Company are -

High brand equity

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

Analytics focus

– Live Company 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 Recreational Activities 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.

Organizational Resilience of Live Company

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Live Company 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 Live Company 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Live Company in Recreational Activities industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Learning organization

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

Innovation driven organization

– Live Company is one of the most innovative firm in Recreational Activities sector.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Live Company comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Recreational Activities 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.

Training and development

– Live Company 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.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Recreational Activities industry

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

Highly skilled collaborators

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

Ability to lead change in Recreational Activities

– Live Company is one of the leading players in the Recreational Activities industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Recreational Activities industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Live Company 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 Live Company | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Live Company are -

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Live Company is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Recreational Activities industry, but Live Company needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Live Company to focus more on services in the Recreational Activities industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Lack of clear differentiation of Live Company products

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

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

Low market penetration in new markets

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

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Live Company, in the dynamic environment of Recreational Activities industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Live Company has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Products dominated business model

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

Need for greater diversity

– Live Company 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.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

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

High bargaining power of channel partners in Recreational Activities industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Live Company 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 Recreational Activities industry.

High operating costs

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

Employees’ less understanding of Live Company strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Live Company 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.

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

The opportunities of Live Company are -

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Recreational Activities industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Live Company can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Loyalty marketing

– Live Company 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Live Company has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Recreational Activities sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Live Company to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Live Company 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 Live Company to increase its market reach. Live Company 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Live Company 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.

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 Live Company 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.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Recreational Activities industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Live Company in the Recreational Activities industry. Now Live Company 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 Live Company 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 Live Company to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Manufacturing automation

– Live Company can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Recreational Activities 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

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

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Live Company has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Recreational Activities industry. This can help Live Company to build a more holistic ecosystem for Live Company products in the Recreational Activities 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, Live Company 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 Live Company 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. Live Company can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

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

The threats of Live Company are -

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

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Live Company has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Recreational Activities industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Live Company needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Recreational Activities 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.

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 Live Company.

Shortening product life cycle

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

Regulatory challenges

– Live Company 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 Recreational Activities industry regulations.

Increasing wage structure of Live Company

– 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 Live Company.

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.

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 Live Company in the Recreational Activities sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Live Company 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 Recreational Activities industry and other sectors.

Environmental challenges

– Live Company 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. Live Company can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Recreational Activities industry.

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. Live Company 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.

Barriers of entry lowering

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

Easy access to finance

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

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Live Company Template, Example

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

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