Postmedia Network Canada B (PNCb) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Printing & Publishing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Postmedia Network Canada B (Canada)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Postmedia Network Canada B is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Postmedia Network Canada B
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Postmedia Network Canada B can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Postmedia Network Canada B, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Postmedia Network Canada 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 Postmedia Network Canada B can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Postmedia Network Canada B
2. Improving business portfolio management of Postmedia Network Canada B
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Canada
4. Making a Printing & Publishing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Postmedia Network Canada B
Strengths of Postmedia Network Canada B | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Postmedia Network Canada B are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Postmedia Network Canada B in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Postmedia Network Canada B has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Postmedia Network Canada B to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Postmedia Network Canada B in Printing & Publishing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Postmedia Network Canada B is one of the leading players in the Printing & Publishing industry in Canada. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Canada. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Postmedia Network Canada B has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Printing & Publishing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Postmedia Network Canada B have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Postmedia Network Canada B
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Postmedia Network Canada B does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Postmedia Network Canada 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Postmedia Network Canada B comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Printing & Publishing 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 brand equity
– Postmedia Network Canada B has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Postmedia Network Canada B to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Postmedia Network Canada B 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Postmedia Network Canada B is present in almost all the verticals within the Printing & Publishing industry. This has provided Postmedia Network Canada B 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Printing & Publishing industry
– Postmedia Network Canada 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.
Digital Transformation in Printing & Publishing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Postmedia Network Canada B digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Postmedia Network Canada 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.
Weaknesses of Postmedia Network Canada B | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Postmedia Network Canada B are -
Employees’ less understanding of Postmedia Network Canada B strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Postmedia Network Canada B 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Printing & Publishing industry, Postmedia Network Canada 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Postmedia Network Canada B products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Postmedia Network Canada B needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Postmedia Network Canada B, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Printing & Publishing 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Postmedia Network Canada B has high operating costs in the Printing & Publishing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Postmedia Network Canada B lucrative customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Postmedia Network Canada 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Postmedia Network Canada B is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Postmedia Network Canada B to provide better information regarding Printing & Publishing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Postmedia Network Canada B is one of the leading players in the Printing & Publishing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Printing & Publishing industry in last five years.
High dependence on Postmedia Network Canada B ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Postmedia Network Canada B still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Printing & Publishing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Postmedia Network Canada B has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Printing & Publishing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Canada, Postmedia Network Canada 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 Printing & Publishing industry.
Need for greater diversity
– Postmedia Network Canada 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.
Postmedia Network Canada B Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Postmedia Network Canada B are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Postmedia Network Canada B 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Postmedia Network Canada 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Postmedia Network Canada B can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Postmedia Network Canada B operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Printing & Publishing sector.
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 Postmedia Network Canada 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Postmedia Network Canada B has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Printing & Publishing industry. This can help Postmedia Network Canada B to build a more holistic ecosystem for Postmedia Network Canada B products in the Printing & Publishing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Postmedia Network Canada B to increase its market reach. Postmedia Network Canada B 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.
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. Postmedia Network Canada B can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Postmedia Network Canada B has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Printing & Publishing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Postmedia Network Canada B to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Postmedia Network Canada B to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Printing & Publishing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Postmedia Network Canada B can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Manufacturing automation
– Postmedia Network Canada B can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Printing & Publishing sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Postmedia Network Canada 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Postmedia Network Canada 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 Printing & Publishing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Postmedia Network Canada 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 Printing & Publishing industry.
Threats Postmedia Network Canada B External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Postmedia Network Canada B are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Postmedia Network Canada 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 Printing & Publishing sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Postmedia Network Canada B is facing in Printing & Publishing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Postmedia Network Canada 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 Printing & Publishing industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Printing & Publishing industry are lowering. It can presents Postmedia Network Canada B with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Printing & Publishing sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Postmedia Network Canada 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 Postmedia Network Canada B prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Postmedia Network Canada B
– 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 Postmedia Network Canada B.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Postmedia Network Canada 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.
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 Postmedia Network Canada B business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Postmedia Network Canada 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 Printing & Publishing industry and other sectors.
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. Postmedia Network Canada 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Postmedia Network Canada B has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Printing & Publishing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Postmedia Network Canada B needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Printing & Publishing 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Postmedia Network Canada B Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Postmedia Network Canada 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 Postmedia Network Canada 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 Postmedia Network Canada 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 Postmedia Network Canada 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 Postmedia Network Canada B needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.