Connected Media Tech (CNCM) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Business Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Connected Media Tech (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Connected Media Tech is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions, increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Connected Media Tech
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Connected Media Tech can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Connected Media Tech, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Connected Media Tech 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 Connected Media Tech can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Connected Media Tech
2. Improving business portfolio management of Connected Media Tech
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Business Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Connected Media Tech
Strengths of Connected Media Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Connected Media Tech are -
Ability to lead change in Business Services
– Connected Media Tech is one of the leading players in the Business Services industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Business Services industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Connected Media Tech in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Connected Media Tech has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Business Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Connected Media Tech have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Connected Media Tech in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Connected Media Tech has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Connected Media Tech to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Connected Media Tech has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Connected Media Tech staying ahead in the Business Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Business Services industry
– Connected Media Tech has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Connected Media Tech to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Business Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Connected Media Tech to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Connected Media Tech is present in almost all the verticals within the Business Services industry. This has provided Connected Media Tech 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.
Training and development
– Connected Media Tech 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Business Services industry
– Connected Media Tech 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
– Connected Media Tech has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Connected Media Tech 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Connected Media Tech in Business Services 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 Connected Media Tech 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Connected Media Tech 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 Connected Media Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Connected Media Tech are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Connected Media Tech has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Business Services industry over the last five years. Connected Media Tech 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 Connected Media Tech is one of the leading players in the Business Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Business Services industry in last five years.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Connected Media Tech needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Connected Media Tech is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Connected Media Tech to provide better information regarding Business Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring in Business Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Connected Media Tech 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Connected Media Tech has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Business 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Connected Media Tech, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Business Services 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Connected Media Tech needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Business Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Connected Media Tech can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Connected Media Tech is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on Connected Media Tech ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Connected Media Tech still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Business Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Connected Media Tech has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Connected Media Tech is just above the Business 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Connected Media Tech strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Connected Media Tech 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.
Connected Media Tech Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Connected Media Tech are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Connected Media Tech to increase its market reach. Connected Media Tech will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
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 Connected Media Tech 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Connected Media Tech 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Connected Media Tech 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Connected Media Tech is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Connected Media Tech can utilize new technology in the field of Business Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Connected Media Tech 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Business Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Connected Media Tech 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. Connected Media Tech 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Connected Media Tech has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Business Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Connected Media Tech to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Connected Media Tech to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Business Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Connected Media Tech in the Business Services industry. Now Connected Media Tech can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Connected Media Tech can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Connected Media Tech 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 Connected Media Tech to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Connected Media Tech can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Connected Media Tech operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Business Services sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– Connected Media Tech can develop new processes and procedures in Business 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.
Threats Connected Media Tech External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Connected Media Tech are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Business Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Connected Media Tech can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Connected Media Tech needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Business Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Connected Media Tech has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Business Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Connected Media Tech needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Business Services 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Connected Media Tech 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 Business Services industry and other sectors.
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 Connected Media Tech business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Connected Media Tech in the Business Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Connected Media Tech in Business Services industry. The Business 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.
Environmental challenges
– Connected Media Tech 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. Connected Media Tech can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Business Services industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Connected Media Tech 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 Business Services industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Connected Media Tech 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Business Services industry are lowering. It can presents Connected Media Tech with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Business Services sector.
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 Connected Media Tech.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Connected Media Tech Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Connected Media Tech 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 Connected Media Tech 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 Connected Media Tech 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 Connected Media Tech 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 Connected Media Tech needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.