iPic Entertainment (IPIC) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Restaurants
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for iPic Entertainment (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , iPic Entertainment is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of iPic Entertainment
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that iPic Entertainment can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the iPic Entertainment, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which iPic Entertainment 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 iPic Entertainment can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of iPic Entertainment
2. Improving business portfolio management of iPic Entertainment
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Restaurants sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of iPic Entertainment
Strengths of iPic Entertainment | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of iPic Entertainment are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– iPic Entertainment has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – iPic Entertainment staying ahead in the Restaurants industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of iPic Entertainment comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Restaurants 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– iPic Entertainment is present in almost all the verticals within the Restaurants industry. This has provided iPic Entertainment 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.
Analytics focus
– iPic Entertainment 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 Restaurants 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.
Ability to lead change in Restaurants
– iPic Entertainment is one of the leading players in the Restaurants industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Restaurants industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled iPic Entertainment in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Restaurants industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For iPic Entertainment digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. iPic Entertainment 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.
Learning organization
- iPic Entertainment 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 iPic Entertainment is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at iPic Entertainment emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Restaurants industry
– iPic Entertainment is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of iPic Entertainment in the Services sector have low bargaining power. iPic Entertainment has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps iPic Entertainment to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– iPic Entertainment is one of the most innovative firm in Restaurants sector.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that iPic Entertainment 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.
Organizational Resilience of iPic Entertainment
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing iPic Entertainment does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of iPic Entertainment | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of iPic Entertainment are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though iPic Entertainment has some of the most successful models in the Restaurants industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. iPic Entertainment should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, iPic Entertainment needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at iPic Entertainment, in the dynamic environment of Restaurants industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. iPic Entertainment has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
iPic Entertainment has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Restaurants 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Restaurants industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, iPic Entertainment 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 Restaurants industry.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of iPic Entertainment is just above the Restaurants 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.
Skills based hiring in Restaurants industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at iPic Entertainment 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.
Need for greater diversity
– iPic Entertainment 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, iPic Entertainment 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 Restaurants industry using digital technology.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that iPic Entertainment needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Restaurants industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at iPic Entertainment can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as iPic Entertainment is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of iPic Entertainment, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Restaurants 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.
iPic Entertainment Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of iPic Entertainment are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of iPic Entertainment has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Restaurants industry. This can help iPic Entertainment to build a more holistic ecosystem for iPic Entertainment products in the Restaurants industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, iPic Entertainment 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for iPic Entertainment in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Restaurants industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, iPic Entertainment is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. iPic Entertainment can utilize new technology in the field of Restaurants industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Restaurants industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for iPic Entertainment in the Restaurants industry. Now iPic Entertainment can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Developing new processes and practices
– iPic Entertainment can develop new processes and procedures in Restaurants 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 Restaurants industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. iPic Entertainment 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. iPic Entertainment 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at iPic Entertainment 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 Restaurants industry.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for iPic Entertainment 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.
Loyalty marketing
– iPic Entertainment 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for iPic Entertainment 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 iPic Entertainment to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– iPic Entertainment can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Restaurants 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help iPic Entertainment to increase its market reach. iPic Entertainment 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.
Threats iPic Entertainment External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of iPic Entertainment are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for iPic Entertainment in Restaurants industry. The Restaurants 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.
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.
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. iPic Entertainment 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.
Environmental challenges
– iPic Entertainment 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. iPic Entertainment can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Restaurants 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 iPic Entertainment in the Restaurants sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that iPic Entertainment is facing in Restaurants sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 iPic Entertainment business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– iPic Entertainment 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 Restaurants industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of iPic Entertainment
– 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 iPic Entertainment.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Restaurants industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. iPic Entertainment can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– iPic Entertainment 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 Restaurants industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– iPic Entertainment has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Restaurants industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, iPic Entertainment needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Restaurants 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– iPic Entertainment 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of iPic Entertainment Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at iPic Entertainment 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 iPic Entertainment 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 iPic Entertainment 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 iPic Entertainment 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 iPic Entertainment needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.