Mobile Streams (MOSE) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Communications Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Mobile Streams (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Mobile Streams is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – 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, technology disruption, increasing energy prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Mobile Streams can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Mobile Streams, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Mobile Streams 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 Mobile Streams can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Mobile Streams
2. Improving business portfolio management of Mobile Streams
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 Mobile Streams
Strengths of Mobile Streams | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Mobile Streams are -
Ability to lead change in Communications Services
– Mobile Streams 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 Mobile Streams in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Mobile Streams in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Mobile Streams has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Mobile Streams to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Mobile Streams 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 Mobile Streams have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Mobile Streams in Communications Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Mobile Streams has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Mobile Streams to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Mobile Streams are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Communications Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Mobile Streams digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Mobile Streams 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.
Training and development
– Mobile Streams 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.
Learning organization
- Mobile Streams 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 Mobile Streams is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Mobile Streams emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Communications Services industry
– Mobile Streams has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Mobile Streams to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Communications Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Mobile Streams to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Communications Services industry
– Mobile Streams 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 switching costs
– The high switching costs that Mobile Streams 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.
Weaknesses of Mobile Streams | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Mobile Streams are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Mobile Streams is one of the leading players in the Communications Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Communications Services industry in last five years.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Mobile Streams is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Mobile Streams to provide better information regarding Communications Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High dependence on Mobile Streams ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Mobile Streams 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 Mobile Streams has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Mobile Streams 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 Communications Services industry using digital technology.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Communications Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Mobile Streams 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 Communications Services industry.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Mobile Streams 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 Mobile Streams can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Mobile Streams is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Mobile Streams 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Mobile Streams has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Communications Services industry over the last five years. Mobile Streams 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Mobile Streams 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Communications Services industry, Mobile Streams 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Mobile Streams is just above the Communications Services 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.
Mobile Streams Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Mobile Streams are -
Buying journey improvements
– Mobile Streams 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Mobile Streams 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Mobile Streams has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Communications Services industry. This can help Mobile Streams to build a more holistic ecosystem for Mobile Streams products in the Communications Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Mobile Streams in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Communications Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Mobile Streams can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Communications Services 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Mobile Streams 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 Mobile Streams to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Mobile Streams to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Mobile Streams can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Mobile Streams 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Mobile Streams 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Mobile Streams 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Mobile Streams 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Mobile Streams 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 Communications Services industry.
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. Mobile Streams can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Mobile Streams External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Mobile Streams are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Communications Services industry are lowering. It can presents Mobile Streams with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Communications Services sector.
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. Mobile Streams needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Communications Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Mobile Streams 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. Mobile Streams can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Communications Services industry.
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 Mobile Streams.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Mobile Streams 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Mobile Streams 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 Mobile Streams prominent markets.
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. Mobile Streams 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.
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 Mobile Streams business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Mobile Streams is facing in Communications Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Mobile Streams 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 wage structure of Mobile Streams
– 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 Mobile Streams.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Mobile Streams 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Mobile Streams Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Mobile Streams 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 Mobile Streams 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 Mobile Streams 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 Mobile Streams 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 Mobile Streams needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.