Liberty Global B (LBTYB) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Broadcasting & Cable TV
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Liberty Global B (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Liberty Global B is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Liberty Global B can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Liberty Global B, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Liberty Global B 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 Liberty Global B can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Liberty Global B
2. Improving business portfolio management of Liberty Global B
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Broadcasting & Cable TV sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Liberty Global B
Strengths of Liberty Global B | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Liberty Global B are -
Ability to lead change in Broadcasting & Cable TV
– Liberty Global B is one of the leading players in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Liberty Global B 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 Liberty Global B 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.
Digital Transformation in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Liberty Global B digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Liberty Global B 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Liberty Global B 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Liberty Global B 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 Liberty Global B have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Liberty Global B has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Liberty Global B to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– Liberty Global B is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Liberty Global B is one of the most innovative firm in Broadcasting & Cable TV sector.
Organizational Resilience of Liberty Global B
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Liberty Global B does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Liberty Global B is one of the leading players in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Liberty Global B in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Liberty Global B has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Liberty Global B to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Liberty Global B has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Liberty Global B staying ahead in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of Liberty Global B | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Liberty Global B are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Liberty Global B is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry, but Liberty Global B needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Liberty Global B to focus more on services in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Liberty Global B 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry, Liberty Global B 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Liberty Global B 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Liberty Global B 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 Liberty Global B can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Liberty Global B is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Liberty Global B 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV industry.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Liberty Global B 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Liberty Global B, in the dynamic environment of Broadcasting & Cable TV industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Liberty Global B has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Liberty Global B needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Liberty Global B products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Liberty Global B needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Liberty Global B 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.
Liberty Global B Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Liberty Global B are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Liberty Global B 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.
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. Liberty Global B can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Buying journey improvements
– Liberty Global B 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Liberty Global B in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Liberty Global B 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 Liberty Global B 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Liberty Global B can develop new processes and procedures in Broadcasting & Cable TV 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.
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 Liberty Global B in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. Now Liberty Global B can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Liberty Global B 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 Liberty Global B to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Liberty Global B 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 Liberty Global B to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Liberty Global B 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, Liberty Global B is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Liberty Global B can utilize new technology in the field of Broadcasting & Cable TV industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Liberty Global B 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.
Threats Liberty Global B External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Liberty Global B are -
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. Liberty Global B 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Liberty Global B 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Liberty Global B 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.
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 Liberty Global B.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Liberty Global B 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 Liberty Global B 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Liberty Global B 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 Liberty Global B prominent markets.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Liberty Global B has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Liberty Global B needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Broadcasting & Cable TV 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Liberty Global B is facing in Broadcasting & Cable TV sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Liberty Global B 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.
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 Liberty Global B in the Broadcasting & Cable TV sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Liberty Global B in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. The Broadcasting & Cable TV 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. Liberty Global B needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Liberty Global B Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Liberty Global B 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 Liberty Global B 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 Liberty Global B 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 Liberty Global B 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 Liberty Global B needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
