Digital Brand Media (DBMM) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Advertising
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Digital Brand Media (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Digital Brand Media is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Digital Brand Media
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Digital Brand Media can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Digital Brand Media, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Digital Brand 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 Digital Brand Media can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Digital Brand Media
2. Improving business portfolio management of Digital Brand Media
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Advertising sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Digital Brand Media
Strengths of Digital Brand Media | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Digital Brand Media are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Digital Brand Media in Advertising industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Digital Brand 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 Advertising industry
– Digital Brand Media has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Digital Brand Media to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Advertising industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Digital Brand Media to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Advertising industry
– Digital Brand 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.
Organizational Resilience of Digital Brand Media
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Digital Brand Media does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Digital Brand Media 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Digital Brand Media has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Advertising industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Digital Brand Media have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Digital Brand Media has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Digital Brand Media staying ahead in the Advertising industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– Digital Brand Media has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Digital Brand Media to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Advertising
– Digital Brand Media is one of the leading players in the Advertising industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Advertising industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Digital Brand Media in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Digital Brand 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Digital Brand Media is one of the most innovative firm in Advertising sector.
Weaknesses of Digital Brand Media | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Digital Brand Media are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Digital Brand 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 Advertising industry using digital technology.
Lack of clear differentiation of Digital Brand Media products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Digital Brand Media needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Advertising industry, Digital Brand Media 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Digital Brand Media has some of the most successful models in the Advertising industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Digital Brand Media should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Digital Brand Media 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 to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Digital Brand Media is one of the leading players in the Advertising industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Advertising industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Digital Brand Media, in the dynamic environment of Advertising industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Digital Brand Media has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring in Advertising industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Digital Brand Media 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Digital Brand Media needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Advertising industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Digital Brand Media can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Digital Brand Media is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Digital Brand 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Digital Brand Media is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Digital Brand Media to provide better information regarding Advertising products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Digital Brand Media Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Digital Brand Media are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Digital Brand Media to increase its market reach. Digital Brand Media 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Advertising industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Digital Brand Media in the Advertising industry. Now Digital Brand Media can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Digital Brand 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 Advertising industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Digital Brand Media has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Advertising sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Digital Brand Media to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Digital Brand 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 Digital Brand 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Digital Brand Media is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Digital Brand Media can utilize new technology in the field of Advertising industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Digital Brand 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 Digital Brand 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Digital Brand Media can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Advertising 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Digital Brand 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Digital Brand Media 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Advertising industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Digital Brand 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. Digital Brand 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
– Digital Brand 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Advertising industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Digital Brand Media can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Digital Brand Media External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Digital Brand Media are -
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 Digital Brand Media.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Digital Brand 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 Advertising sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Digital Brand 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 Advertising industry regulations.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Digital Brand Media is facing in Advertising sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Advertising industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Digital Brand Media can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Digital Brand 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 Digital Brand Media.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Digital Brand Media has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Advertising industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Digital Brand Media needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Advertising 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.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Digital Brand 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. Digital Brand Media can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Advertising industry.
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 Digital Brand Media in the Advertising sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Digital Brand 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.
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. Digital Brand Media needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Advertising industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Digital Brand 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 Digital Brand Media prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Digital Brand Media Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Digital Brand 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 Digital Brand 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 Digital Brand 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 Digital Brand 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 Digital Brand Media needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
