Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Juniper Grp Inc is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
increasing commodity prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Juniper Grp Inc can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Juniper Grp Inc, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Juniper Grp Inc 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 Juniper Grp Inc can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Juniper Grp Inc
2. Improving business portfolio management of Juniper Grp Inc
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Communications Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Juniper Grp Inc
Strengths of Juniper Grp Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Juniper Grp Inc are -
Digital Transformation in Communications Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Juniper Grp Inc digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Juniper Grp Inc 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Juniper Grp Inc in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Juniper Grp Inc has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Juniper Grp Inc to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Communications Services industry
– Juniper Grp Inc has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Juniper Grp Inc to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Communications Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Juniper Grp Inc to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Juniper Grp Inc has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Juniper Grp Inc 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.
Learning organization
- Juniper Grp Inc 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 Juniper Grp Inc is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Juniper Grp Inc emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Juniper Grp Inc has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Juniper Grp Inc staying ahead in the Communications Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Juniper Grp Inc 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.
Organizational Resilience of Juniper Grp Inc
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Juniper Grp Inc does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Juniper Grp Inc is present in almost all the verticals within the Communications Services industry. This has provided Juniper Grp Inc 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Juniper Grp Inc in Communications Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Juniper Grp Inc comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Communications 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Juniper Grp Inc has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Communications Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Juniper Grp Inc have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Juniper Grp Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Juniper Grp Inc are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Juniper Grp Inc has some of the most successful models in the Communications Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Juniper Grp Inc should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Juniper Grp Inc 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 Communications Services industry using digital technology.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Juniper Grp Inc is just above the Communications 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Juniper Grp Inc, in the dynamic environment of Communications Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Juniper Grp Inc has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Juniper Grp Inc has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Communications Services industry over the last five years. Juniper Grp Inc 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Juniper Grp Inc 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Juniper Grp Inc has high operating costs in the Communications Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Juniper Grp Inc lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Juniper Grp Inc has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Communications 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Juniper Grp Inc strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Juniper Grp Inc 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Juniper Grp Inc needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Communications Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Juniper Grp Inc can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Juniper Grp Inc is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Juniper Grp Inc, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Communications 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.
Juniper Grp Inc Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Juniper Grp Inc are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Juniper Grp Inc can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Juniper Grp Inc operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Communications Services sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Juniper Grp Inc 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Juniper Grp Inc has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Communications Services industry. This can help Juniper Grp Inc to build a more holistic ecosystem for Juniper Grp Inc products in the Communications Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Juniper Grp Inc 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 Juniper Grp Inc to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Communications Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Juniper Grp Inc can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Juniper Grp Inc is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Juniper Grp Inc can utilize new technology in the field of Communications Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Juniper Grp Inc 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Juniper Grp Inc 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Juniper Grp Inc 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 Juniper Grp Inc to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Communications Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Juniper Grp Inc in the Communications Services industry. Now Juniper Grp Inc 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 Juniper Grp Inc in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Communications Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– Juniper Grp Inc can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Communications 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Juniper Grp Inc 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.
Threats Juniper Grp Inc External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Juniper Grp Inc are -
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Communications Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Juniper Grp Inc can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Juniper Grp Inc 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 Communications Services industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of Juniper Grp Inc
– 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 Juniper Grp Inc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Communications Services industry are lowering. It can presents Juniper Grp Inc with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Communications 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 Juniper Grp Inc.
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 Juniper Grp Inc business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Juniper Grp Inc in the Communications Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Juniper Grp Inc is facing in Communications Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Juniper Grp Inc has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Communications Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Juniper Grp Inc needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Communications 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, Juniper Grp Inc may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Communications Services sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Juniper Grp Inc in Communications Services industry. The Communications 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.
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. Juniper Grp Inc needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Communications Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Juniper Grp Inc Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Juniper Grp Inc 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 Juniper Grp Inc 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 Juniper Grp Inc 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 Juniper Grp Inc 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 Juniper Grp Inc needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.