Glowpoint (GLOW) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Glowpoint (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Glowpoint is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing transportation and logistics costs, geopolitical disruptions, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Glowpoint

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Glowpoint can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Glowpoint, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Glowpoint 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Glowpoint can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Glowpoint
2. Improving business portfolio management of Glowpoint
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 Glowpoint

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Strengths of Glowpoint | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Glowpoint are -

Highly skilled collaborators

– Glowpoint 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 Glowpoint have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Learning organization

- Glowpoint 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 Glowpoint is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Glowpoint emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Business Services industry

– Glowpoint has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Glowpoint to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Business Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Glowpoint to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Glowpoint has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Glowpoint 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.

Ability to lead change in Business Services

– Glowpoint 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 Glowpoint in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Organizational Resilience of Glowpoint

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Glowpoint does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Analytics focus

– Glowpoint 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 Business Services 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Glowpoint in Business Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Strong track record of project management in the Business Services industry

– Glowpoint is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Glowpoint comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Business Services industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Glowpoint in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Glowpoint has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Glowpoint to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

High brand equity

– Glowpoint has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Glowpoint to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

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Weaknesses of Glowpoint | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Glowpoint are -

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Glowpoint is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Business Services industry, but Glowpoint needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Glowpoint to focus more on services in the Business Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Business Services industry, Glowpoint 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 cash cycle compare to competitors

Glowpoint 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.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Glowpoint has high operating costs in the Business Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Glowpoint lucrative customers.

Lack of clear differentiation of Glowpoint products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Glowpoint needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Glowpoint is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Glowpoint to provide better information regarding Business Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Glowpoint 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.

Need for greater diversity

– Glowpoint 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.

Skills based hiring in Business Services industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Glowpoint 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 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 Glowpoint supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Glowpoint is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Glowpoint vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Business Services industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Glowpoint is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Business Services industry.

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Glowpoint Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Glowpoint are -

Buying journey improvements

– Glowpoint can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Business Services 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Glowpoint has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Business Services industry. This can help Glowpoint to build a more holistic ecosystem for Glowpoint products in the Business Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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. Glowpoint 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. Glowpoint 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Glowpoint 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 Glowpoint to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Glowpoint in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Business Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

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 Glowpoint 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, Glowpoint is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Glowpoint 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.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Business Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Glowpoint can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Loyalty marketing

– Glowpoint 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Glowpoint 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 Glowpoint to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

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. Glowpoint can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Glowpoint 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.

Developing new processes and practices

– Glowpoint 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.

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Threats Glowpoint External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Glowpoint 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 Glowpoint.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Glowpoint 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.

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 Glowpoint in the Business Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Business Services industry are lowering. It can presents Glowpoint with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Business Services sector.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Glowpoint is facing in Business Services 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 Business Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Glowpoint can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Environmental challenges

– Glowpoint 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. Glowpoint can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Business Services industry.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Glowpoint 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.

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.

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 Glowpoint business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Glowpoint has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Business Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Glowpoint 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.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Glowpoint may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Business Services sector.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Glowpoint 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Glowpoint Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Glowpoint 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 Glowpoint 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 Glowpoint 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 Glowpoint 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 Glowpoint needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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