HT&E (HT1) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Broadcasting & Cable TV
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for HT&E (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , HT&E is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing,
technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that HT&E can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the HT&E, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which HT&E 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 HT&E can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of HT&E
2. Improving business portfolio management of HT&E
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Broadcasting & Cable TV sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of HT&E
Strengths of HT&E | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of HT&E are -
Learning organization
- HT&E 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 HT&E is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at HT&E emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– HT&E has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled HT&E to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Broadcasting & Cable TV
– HT&E is one of the leading players in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled HT&E in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of HT&E comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Broadcasting & Cable TV 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that HT&E 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– HT&E has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. HT&E 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.
Training and development
– HT&E 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– HT&E 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
– HT&E has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled HT&E to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. The sustainable margins have also helped HT&E to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– HT&E is present in almost all the verticals within the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. This has provided HT&E 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– HT&E 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 HT&E have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– HT&E 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. The technology infrastructure of Australia 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.
Weaknesses of HT&E | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of HT&E are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, HT&E 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. HT&E 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at HT&E, in the dynamic environment of Broadcasting & Cable TV industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. HT&E has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of HT&E is just above the Broadcasting & Cable TV 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, HT&E needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of HT&E products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, HT&E needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As HT&E 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, HT&E 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry, HT&E 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, HT&E 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, HT&E is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help HT&E 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that HT&E needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at HT&E can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as HT&E is planning to shift buying processes online.
HT&E Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of HT&E are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for HT&E 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 HT&E to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, HT&E can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that HT&E operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Broadcasting & Cable TV sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects HT&E can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– HT&E 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at HT&E 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– HT&E 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 HT&E to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help HT&E to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– HT&E 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.
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 HT&E 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.
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 HT&E in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. Now HT&E can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, HT&E 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help HT&E to increase its market reach. HT&E 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. HT&E can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. HT&E can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats HT&E External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of HT&E are -
Increasing wage structure of HT&E
– 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 HT&E.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– HT&E 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on HT&E 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.
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 HT&E.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that HT&E is facing in Broadcasting & Cable TV sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Broadcasting & Cable TV industry are lowering. It can presents HT&E with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Broadcasting & Cable TV sector.
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. HT&E can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 HT&E business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, HT&E 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– HT&E 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.
Regulatory challenges
– HT&E 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV industry regulations.
Environmental challenges
– HT&E 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. HT&E can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of HT&E Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at HT&E 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 HT&E 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 HT&E 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 HT&E 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 HT&E needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.