Onstream Media Corp (ONSM) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Onstream Media Corp (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Onstream Media Corp is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Onstream Media Corp

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Onstream Media Corp can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Onstream Media Corp, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Onstream Media Corp 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Onstream Media Corp can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Onstream Media Corp
2. Improving business portfolio management of Onstream Media Corp
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 Onstream Media Corp

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Strengths of Onstream Media Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Onstream Media Corp are -

Digital Transformation in Computer Services industry

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

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Onstream Media Corp in Computer Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

High brand equity

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

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Onstream Media Corp comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Computer 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.

Learning organization

- Onstream Media Corp 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 Onstream Media Corp is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Onstream Media Corp emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Diverse revenue streams

– Onstream Media Corp is present in almost all the verticals within the Computer Services industry. This has provided Onstream Media Corp 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.

Ability to lead change in Computer Services

– Onstream Media Corp 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 Onstream Media Corp in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Onstream Media Corp has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Onstream Media Corp 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.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Onstream Media Corp 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

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

Highly skilled collaborators

– Onstream Media Corp has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Computer Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Onstream Media Corp have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Training and development

– Onstream Media Corp has one of the best training and development program in Technology industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.

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Weaknesses of Onstream Media Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Onstream Media Corp are -

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Onstream Media Corp has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Computer Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Computer Services industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Onstream Media Corp 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.

Skills based hiring in Computer Services industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Onstream Media Corp 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Onstream Media Corp needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Computer Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Onstream Media Corp can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Onstream Media Corp is planning to shift buying processes online.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of United States, Onstream Media Corp needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Onstream Media Corp has some of the most successful models in the Computer Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Onstream Media Corp should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Lack of clear differentiation of Onstream Media Corp products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Onstream Media Corp needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Onstream Media Corp is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Onstream Media Corp to provide better information regarding Computer Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Employees’ less understanding of Onstream Media Corp strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Onstream Media Corp 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.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Onstream Media Corp 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Onstream Media Corp 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.

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Onstream Media Corp Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Onstream Media Corp are -

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Onstream Media Corp 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.

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 Onstream Media Corp in the Computer Services industry. Now Onstream Media Corp can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Onstream Media Corp 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Onstream Media Corp is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Onstream Media Corp 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.

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. Onstream Media Corp 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. Onstream Media Corp 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Onstream Media Corp 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.

Creating value in data economy

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

Reforming the budgeting process

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

Leveraging digital technologies

– Onstream Media Corp 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

– Onstream Media Corp 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.

Developing new processes and practices

– Onstream Media Corp 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.

Increase in government spending

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

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Threats Onstream Media Corp External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Onstream Media Corp are -

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Onstream Media Corp 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.

Regulatory challenges

– Onstream Media Corp 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.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Onstream Media Corp may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Computer Services sector.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Onstream Media Corp 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.

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 Onstream Media Corp business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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.

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. Onstream Media Corp needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Computer 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.

Increasing wage structure of Onstream Media Corp

– 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 Onstream Media Corp.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Onstream Media Corp 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 Computer Services industry.

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. Onstream Media Corp can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Barriers of entry lowering

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

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 Onstream Media Corp in the Computer Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Onstream Media Corp Template, Example

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

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