Southern Cross Media (SXL) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Broadcasting & Cable TV
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Southern Cross Media (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Southern Cross Media is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Southern Cross Media
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Southern Cross Media can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Southern Cross Media, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Southern Cross Media 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 Southern Cross Media can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Southern Cross Media
2. Improving business portfolio management of Southern Cross Media
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Broadcasting & Cable TV sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Southern Cross Media
Strengths of Southern Cross Media | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Southern Cross Media are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Southern Cross Media is one of the leading players in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry in Australia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Australia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Southern Cross Media has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Southern Cross Media have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Southern Cross Media has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Southern Cross Media to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Southern Cross Media 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 Southern Cross Media is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Southern Cross Media emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Southern Cross Media has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Southern Cross Media staying ahead in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Southern Cross Media digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Southern Cross Media 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Southern Cross Media in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Southern Cross Media has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Southern Cross Media to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Southern Cross Media
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Southern Cross Media 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– Southern Cross Media is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Southern Cross Media 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– Southern Cross Media has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Southern Cross Media to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Southern Cross Media to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Southern Cross Media 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.
Weaknesses of Southern Cross Media | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Southern Cross Media are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Southern Cross Media has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Southern Cross Media is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Southern Cross Media to provide better information regarding Broadcasting & Cable TV products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Southern Cross Media is one of the leading players in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry in last five years.
Need for greater diversity
– Southern Cross Media 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Southern Cross Media 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV industry using digital technology.
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 Southern Cross Media supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Southern Cross Media is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Southern Cross Media vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ less understanding of Southern Cross Media strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Southern Cross Media 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Southern Cross Media products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Southern Cross Media needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Southern Cross Media has high operating costs in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Southern Cross Media lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Southern Cross Media has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry over the last five years. Southern Cross Media 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Southern Cross Media is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry, but Southern Cross Media needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Southern Cross Media to focus more on services in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Southern Cross Media Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Southern Cross Media are -
Manufacturing automation
– Southern Cross Media can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Broadcasting & Cable TV 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Southern Cross Media in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Southern Cross Media can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Southern Cross Media operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Broadcasting & Cable TV sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Southern Cross Media 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 Southern Cross Media to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Southern Cross Media can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Southern Cross Media has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Broadcasting & Cable TV sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Southern Cross Media to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Southern Cross Media to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Southern Cross Media 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Southern Cross Media 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. Southern Cross Media 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Southern Cross Media 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Southern Cross Media in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. Now Southern Cross Media can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Southern Cross Media can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Southern Cross Media 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Southern Cross Media 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 Southern Cross Media to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Southern Cross Media External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Southern Cross Media are -
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Southern Cross Media is facing in Broadcasting & Cable TV sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Southern Cross Media in the Broadcasting & Cable TV sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Southern Cross Media 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV industry regulations.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Southern Cross Media may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Broadcasting & Cable TV sector.
Increasing wage structure of Southern Cross Media
– 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 Southern Cross Media.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Southern Cross Media has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Southern Cross Media needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Broadcasting & Cable TV 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Southern Cross Media 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 Southern Cross Media prominent markets.
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. Southern Cross Media needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Southern Cross Media 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV industry and other sectors.
Environmental challenges
– Southern Cross Media 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. Southern Cross Media can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Broadcasting & Cable TV 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. Southern Cross Media 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Southern Cross Media 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Southern Cross Media Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Southern Cross Media 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 Southern Cross Media 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 Southern Cross Media 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 Southern Cross Media 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 Southern Cross Media needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.