Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Blonder Tongue Labs is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Blonder Tongue Labs
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Blonder Tongue Labs can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Blonder Tongue Labs, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Blonder Tongue Labs 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 Blonder Tongue Labs can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Blonder Tongue Labs
2. Improving business portfolio management of Blonder Tongue Labs
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Communications Equipment sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Blonder Tongue Labs
Strengths of Blonder Tongue Labs | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Blonder Tongue Labs are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Blonder Tongue Labs is present in almost all the verticals within the Communications Equipment industry. This has provided Blonder Tongue Labs 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Blonder Tongue Labs 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.
Learning organization
- Blonder Tongue Labs 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 Blonder Tongue Labs is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Blonder Tongue Labs emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Communications Equipment industry
– Blonder Tongue Labs has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Blonder Tongue Labs to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Communications Equipment industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Blonder Tongue Labs to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Communications Equipment industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Blonder Tongue Labs digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Blonder Tongue Labs 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Blonder Tongue Labs 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Communications Equipment industry
– Blonder Tongue Labs is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Blonder Tongue Labs has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Blonder Tongue Labs 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Blonder Tongue Labs in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Blonder Tongue Labs has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Blonder Tongue Labs to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Blonder Tongue Labs has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Blonder Tongue Labs is one of the leading players in the Communications Equipment industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Analytics focus
– Blonder Tongue Labs 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 Communications Equipment industry. The technology infrastructure of United States 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.
Weaknesses of Blonder Tongue Labs | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Blonder Tongue Labs are -
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 Blonder Tongue Labs supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Blonder Tongue Labs is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Blonder Tongue Labs vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Communications Equipment industry, Blonder Tongue Labs 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Blonder Tongue Labs has high operating costs in the Communications Equipment industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Blonder Tongue Labs lucrative customers.
Employees’ less understanding of Blonder Tongue Labs strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Blonder Tongue Labs 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Blonder Tongue Labs, in the dynamic environment of Communications Equipment industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Blonder Tongue Labs has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Blonder Tongue Labs is one of the leading players in the Communications Equipment industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Communications Equipment industry in last five years.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Blonder Tongue Labs has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Communications Equipment industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Blonder Tongue Labs is just above the Communications Equipment 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Blonder Tongue Labs 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 Equipment industry using digital technology.
Skills based hiring in Communications Equipment industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Blonder Tongue Labs has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
High dependence on Blonder Tongue Labs ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Blonder Tongue Labs still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Communications Equipment industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Blonder Tongue Labs has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Blonder Tongue Labs Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Blonder Tongue Labs are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Blonder Tongue Labs has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Communications Equipment industry. This can help Blonder Tongue Labs to build a more holistic ecosystem for Blonder Tongue Labs products in the Communications Equipment industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Blonder Tongue Labs can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Communications Equipment 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Blonder Tongue Labs can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Communications Equipment 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.
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. Blonder Tongue Labs can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Blonder Tongue Labs 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 Blonder Tongue Labs to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Blonder Tongue Labs 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 Blonder Tongue Labs to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Developing new processes and practices
– Blonder Tongue Labs can develop new processes and procedures in Communications Equipment 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Communications Equipment industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Blonder Tongue Labs 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. Blonder Tongue Labs can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Blonder Tongue Labs can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Blonder Tongue Labs can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Blonder Tongue Labs operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Communications Equipment sector.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Communications Equipment industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Blonder Tongue Labs can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Blonder Tongue Labs 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Blonder Tongue Labs is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Blonder Tongue Labs can utilize new technology in the field of Communications Equipment industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats Blonder Tongue Labs External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Blonder Tongue Labs 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Blonder Tongue Labs in Communications Equipment industry. The Communications Equipment 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 Blonder Tongue Labs
– 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 Blonder Tongue Labs.
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 Blonder Tongue Labs in the Communications Equipment sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Blonder Tongue Labs 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.
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 Blonder Tongue Labs.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Blonder Tongue Labs 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 Communications Equipment industry and other sectors.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Communications Equipment industry are lowering. It can presents Blonder Tongue Labs with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Communications Equipment sector.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Blonder Tongue Labs 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 Equipment sector.
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 Blonder Tongue Labs business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Blonder Tongue Labs 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. Blonder Tongue Labs can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Communications Equipment industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Blonder Tongue Labs 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 Blonder Tongue Labs prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Blonder Tongue Labs Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Blonder Tongue Labs 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 Blonder Tongue Labs 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 Blonder Tongue Labs 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 Blonder Tongue Labs 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 Blonder Tongue Labs needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.