Salem Media (SALM) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Broadcasting & Cable TV
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Salem Media (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Salem Media is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Salem Media can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Salem Media, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Salem Media 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 Salem Media can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Salem Media
2. Improving business portfolio management of Salem Media
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Broadcasting & Cable TV sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Salem Media
Strengths of Salem Media | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Salem Media are -
Learning organization
- Salem Media 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 Salem Media is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Salem Media emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Salem Media
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Salem Media does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Salem Media has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Salem Media to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– Salem Media is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Salem Media is one of the most innovative firm in Broadcasting & Cable TV sector.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Salem Media 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.
Analytics focus
– Salem Media 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Salem Media is one of the leading players in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Salem Media 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Salem Media has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Salem Media have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Salem Media comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Training and development
– Salem Media has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.
Weaknesses of Salem Media | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Salem Media are -
Need for greater diversity
– Salem Media 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Salem Media, in the dynamic environment of Broadcasting & Cable TV industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Salem Media has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Salem Media is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Salem Media to provide better information regarding Broadcasting & Cable TV products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Salem Media is just above the Broadcasting & Cable TV 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Salem Media is one of the leading players in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry in last five years.
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 Salem Media supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Salem Media is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Salem Media vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Salem Media needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Salem Media can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Salem Media is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Salem Media products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Salem Media needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Salem Media has high operating costs in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Salem Media lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Salem Media is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Salem Media has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry over the last five years. Salem Media 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.
Salem Media Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Salem Media are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Salem Media in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– Salem Media can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Salem Media 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 Salem Media to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Salem Media can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Salem Media operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Broadcasting & Cable TV sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Salem Media has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Broadcasting & Cable TV sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Salem Media to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Salem Media to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Salem Media 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Salem Media 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Salem Media can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Salem Media to increase its market reach. Salem Media 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Salem Media has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. This can help Salem Media to build a more holistic ecosystem for Salem Media products in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Salem Media 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.
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 Salem Media 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Salem Media can develop new processes and procedures in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Threats Salem Media External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Salem Media are -
Increasing wage structure of Salem Media
– 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 Salem Media.
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 Salem Media.
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.
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 Salem Media in the Broadcasting & Cable TV sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Salem Media can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry.
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. Salem Media 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 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Salem Media 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 Salem Media prominent markets.
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. Salem Media needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Salem Media can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Salem Media may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Broadcasting & Cable TV sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Salem Media has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Salem Media needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Broadcasting & Cable TV sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Salem Media 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Salem Media Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Salem Media 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 Salem Media 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 Salem Media 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 Salem Media 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 Salem Media needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
