Millicom Int Cellular (MIICF) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Millicom Int Cellular (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Millicom Int Cellular is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc

---

---

---

---

Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Millicom Int Cellular

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Millicom Int Cellular can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Millicom Int Cellular, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Millicom Int Cellular 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 Millicom Int Cellular can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Millicom Int Cellular
2. Improving business portfolio management of Millicom Int Cellular
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 Millicom Int Cellular

---

Strengths of Millicom Int Cellular | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Millicom Int Cellular are -

Digital Transformation in Communications Services industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Millicom Int Cellular digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Millicom Int Cellular 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.

Ability to lead change in Communications Services

– Millicom Int Cellular is one of the leading players in the Communications Services industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Communications Services industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Millicom Int Cellular in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Millicom Int Cellular in Communications Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Millicom Int Cellular 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 Millicom Int Cellular have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Communications Services industry

– Millicom Int Cellular has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Millicom Int Cellular to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Communications Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Millicom Int Cellular to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

High brand equity

– Millicom Int Cellular has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Millicom Int Cellular to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Organizational Resilience of Millicom Int Cellular

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Millicom Int Cellular does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Millicom Int Cellular in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Millicom Int Cellular has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Millicom Int Cellular to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Strong track record of project management in the Communications Services industry

– Millicom Int Cellular is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Millicom Int Cellular 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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Millicom Int Cellular is one of the leading players in the Communications Services 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Millicom Int Cellular is present in almost all the verticals within the Communications Services industry. This has provided Millicom Int Cellular 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.

---

---

Weaknesses of Millicom Int Cellular | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Millicom Int Cellular are -

Need for greater diversity

– Millicom Int Cellular 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, Millicom Int Cellular 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 Millicom Int Cellular 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.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Millicom Int Cellular, 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.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Communications Services industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Millicom Int Cellular 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 Communications Services industry.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Communications Services industry, Millicom Int Cellular 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.

Skills based hiring in Communications Services industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Millicom Int Cellular 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 dependence on existing supply chain

– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Millicom Int Cellular supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Millicom Int Cellular is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Millicom Int Cellular vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Employees’ less understanding of Millicom Int Cellular strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Millicom Int Cellular 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.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Millicom Int Cellular, in the dynamic environment of Communications Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Millicom Int Cellular has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Millicom Int Cellular is one of the leading players in the Communications Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Communications Services industry in last five years.

---

Millicom Int Cellular Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Millicom Int Cellular are -

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Millicom Int Cellular 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 Millicom Int Cellular to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Millicom Int Cellular 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.

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. Millicom Int Cellular can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Millicom Int Cellular 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Millicom Int Cellular 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 Communications Services industry.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Millicom Int Cellular can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Millicom Int Cellular operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Communications Services sector.

Developing new processes and practices

– Millicom Int Cellular can develop new processes and procedures in Communications 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Millicom Int Cellular can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Loyalty marketing

– Millicom Int Cellular 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Millicom Int Cellular has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Communications Services industry. This can help Millicom Int Cellular to build a more holistic ecosystem for Millicom Int Cellular products in the Communications Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Millicom Int Cellular is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Millicom Int Cellular 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Millicom Int Cellular 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Millicom Int Cellular 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 Millicom Int Cellular to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

---

Threats Millicom Int Cellular External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Millicom Int Cellular are -

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Millicom Int Cellular 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.

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. Millicom Int Cellular can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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 Millicom Int Cellular in the Communications Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Millicom Int Cellular 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 Millicom Int Cellular prominent markets.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Millicom Int Cellular 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 Communications Services industry.

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. Millicom Int Cellular needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Communications Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

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.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Millicom Int Cellular has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Communications Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Millicom Int Cellular 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.

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 Millicom Int Cellular.

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. Millicom Int Cellular 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.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Millicom Int Cellular is facing in Communications Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Regulatory challenges

– Millicom Int Cellular 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.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Communications Services industry are lowering. It can presents Millicom Int Cellular with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Communications Services sector.

---

Weighted SWOT Analysis of Millicom Int Cellular Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Millicom Int Cellular 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 Millicom Int Cellular 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 Millicom Int Cellular 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 Millicom Int Cellular 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 Millicom Int Cellular needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

--- ---