Liberty Expedia (LEXEA) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Computer Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Liberty Expedia (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Liberty Expedia is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Liberty Expedia can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Liberty Expedia, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Liberty Expedia 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 Expedia can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Liberty Expedia
2. Improving business portfolio management of Liberty Expedia
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Computer Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Liberty Expedia
Strengths of Liberty Expedia | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Liberty Expedia are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Liberty Expedia 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Computer Services industry
– Liberty Expedia 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 Computer Services industry
– Liberty Expedia has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Liberty Expedia to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Computer Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Liberty Expedia to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Computer Services
– Liberty Expedia is one of the leading players in the Computer Services industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Computer Services industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Liberty Expedia in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Liberty Expedia is present in almost all the verticals within the Computer Services industry. This has provided Liberty Expedia 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Liberty Expedia 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.
High brand equity
– Liberty Expedia has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Liberty Expedia to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Liberty Expedia 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 Computer 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Liberty Expedia has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Liberty Expedia staying ahead in the Computer Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Liberty Expedia has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Liberty Expedia 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
- Liberty Expedia 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 Liberty Expedia is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Liberty Expedia emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Liberty Expedia
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Liberty Expedia does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of Liberty Expedia | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Liberty Expedia are -
High dependence on Liberty Expedia ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Liberty Expedia still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Computer Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Liberty Expedia has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Liberty Expedia 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Liberty Expedia 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 Computer Services industry using digital technology.
Need for greater diversity
– Liberty Expedia 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Liberty Expedia has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Computer Services industry over the last five years. Liberty Expedia 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Liberty Expedia is just above the Computer 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Computer Services industry, Liberty Expedia 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Computer Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Liberty Expedia 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 Computer Services industry.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Liberty Expedia, in the dynamic environment of Computer Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Liberty Expedia has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring in Computer Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Liberty Expedia 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Liberty Expedia has high operating costs in the Computer Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Liberty Expedia lucrative customers.
Liberty Expedia Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Liberty Expedia are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Liberty Expedia 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 Expedia 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. Liberty Expedia can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Liberty Expedia 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Computer Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Liberty Expedia in the Computer Services industry. Now Liberty Expedia can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Liberty Expedia 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 Computer Services industry.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Liberty Expedia in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Computer Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– Liberty Expedia can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Computer 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Computer Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Liberty Expedia 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. Liberty Expedia 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Liberty Expedia can develop new processes and procedures in Computer 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Liberty Expedia has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Computer Services industry. This can help Liberty Expedia to build a more holistic ecosystem for Liberty Expedia products in the Computer Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Liberty Expedia has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Computer Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Liberty Expedia to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Liberty Expedia to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Liberty Expedia is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Liberty Expedia can utilize new technology in the field of Computer Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Liberty Expedia 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.
Threats Liberty Expedia External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Liberty Expedia are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Liberty Expedia 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 Computer Services industry and other sectors.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Liberty Expedia 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 Expedia prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Liberty Expedia
– 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 Liberty Expedia.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Liberty Expedia in Computer Services industry. The Computer 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. Liberty Expedia needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Computer Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Liberty Expedia is facing in Computer Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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 Liberty Expedia in the Computer Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Computer Services industry are lowering. It can presents Liberty Expedia with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Computer Services sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Computer Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Liberty Expedia 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
– Liberty Expedia 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 Computer Services industry regulations.
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 Liberty Expedia business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Liberty Expedia Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Liberty Expedia 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 Expedia 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 Expedia 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 Expedia 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 Expedia needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.