B2digital (BTDG) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Broadcasting & Cable TV
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for B2digital (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , B2digital is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that B2digital can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the B2digital, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which B2digital 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 B2digital can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of B2digital
2. Improving business portfolio management of B2digital
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Broadcasting & Cable TV sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of B2digital
Strengths of B2digital | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of B2digital are -
High brand equity
– B2digital has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled B2digital to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– B2digital is one of the leading players in the Broadcasting & Cable TV 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.
Innovation driven organization
– B2digital is one of the most innovative firm in Broadcasting & Cable TV sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– B2digital is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– B2digital has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled B2digital to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. The sustainable margins have also helped B2digital to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– B2digital 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 B2digital have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– B2digital has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. B2digital 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– B2digital is present in almost all the verticals within the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. This has provided B2digital 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.
Learning organization
- B2digital 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 B2digital is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at B2digital emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– B2digital has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – B2digital 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of B2digital in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the B2digital 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 B2digital | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of B2digital are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, B2digital 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, B2digital 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. B2digital 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As B2digital 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.
High dependence on B2digital ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of B2digital still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though B2digital has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of B2digital products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, B2digital needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of B2digital, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, B2digital 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.
Employees’ less understanding of B2digital strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of B2digital 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, B2digital is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help B2digital 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, B2digital 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 B2digital lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at B2digital, in the dynamic environment of Broadcasting & Cable TV industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. B2digital has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
B2digital Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of B2digital are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, B2digital 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.
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 B2digital 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for B2digital 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.
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 B2digital in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. Now B2digital can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– B2digital can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– B2digital 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 B2digital to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help B2digital to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– B2digital 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, B2digital is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. B2digital can utilize new technology in the field of Broadcasting & Cable TV industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for B2digital 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 B2digital to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. B2digital can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at B2digital 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV industry.
Manufacturing automation
– B2digital 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 B2digital 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.
Threats B2digital External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of B2digital are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, B2digital 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 B2digital prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– B2digital 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on B2digital 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that B2digital is facing in Broadcasting & Cable TV sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, B2digital 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.
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. B2digital needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for B2digital in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. The Broadcasting & Cable TV 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– B2digital 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– B2digital has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, B2digital 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 wage structure of B2digital
– 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 B2digital.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. B2digital can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 B2digital.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of B2digital Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at B2digital 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 B2digital 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 B2digital 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 B2digital 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 B2digital needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.