Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sycamore Entmt Grp is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Sycamore Entmt Grp
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Sycamore Entmt Grp can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sycamore Entmt Grp, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sycamore Entmt Grp 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 Sycamore Entmt Grp can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sycamore Entmt Grp
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sycamore Entmt Grp
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Motion Pictures sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Sycamore Entmt Grp
Strengths of Sycamore Entmt Grp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sycamore Entmt Grp are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Motion Pictures industry
– Sycamore Entmt Grp has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sycamore Entmt Grp to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Motion Pictures industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sycamore Entmt Grp to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Sycamore Entmt Grp is one of the most innovative firm in Motion Pictures sector.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sycamore Entmt Grp has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sycamore Entmt Grp has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Strong track record of project management in the Motion Pictures industry
– Sycamore Entmt Grp is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Sycamore Entmt Grp in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Sycamore Entmt Grp has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Sycamore Entmt Grp to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Sycamore Entmt Grp 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.
Analytics focus
– Sycamore Entmt Grp 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 Motion Pictures 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 lead change in Motion Pictures
– Sycamore Entmt Grp is one of the leading players in the Motion Pictures industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Motion Pictures industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Sycamore Entmt Grp in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Sycamore Entmt Grp is present in almost all the verticals within the Motion Pictures industry. This has provided Sycamore Entmt Grp 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Sycamore Entmt Grp in Motion Pictures industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sycamore Entmt Grp 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
– Sycamore Entmt Grp has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Motion Pictures industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Sycamore Entmt Grp have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Sycamore Entmt Grp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sycamore Entmt Grp are -
Skills based hiring in Motion Pictures industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sycamore Entmt Grp 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Sycamore Entmt Grp 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 Motion Pictures industry using digital technology.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Sycamore Entmt Grp 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Sycamore Entmt Grp is just above the Motion Pictures 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Sycamore Entmt Grp products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Sycamore Entmt Grp needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Sycamore Entmt Grp has high operating costs in the Motion Pictures industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Sycamore Entmt Grp lucrative customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Sycamore Entmt Grp 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Sycamore Entmt Grp strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Sycamore Entmt Grp 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.
High dependence on Sycamore Entmt Grp ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Sycamore Entmt Grp still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Motion Pictures industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Sycamore Entmt Grp has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Sycamore Entmt Grp needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Motion Pictures industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Sycamore Entmt Grp 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 Motion Pictures industry.
Sycamore Entmt Grp Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Sycamore Entmt Grp are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Sycamore Entmt Grp to increase its market reach. Sycamore Entmt Grp 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Sycamore Entmt Grp 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 Sycamore Entmt Grp to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Sycamore Entmt Grp 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sycamore Entmt Grp can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sycamore Entmt Grp operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Motion Pictures sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sycamore Entmt Grp 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 Sycamore Entmt Grp to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Manufacturing automation
– Sycamore Entmt Grp can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Motion Pictures 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sycamore Entmt Grp has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Motion Pictures sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Sycamore Entmt Grp to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sycamore Entmt Grp to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sycamore Entmt Grp 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 Motion Pictures industry.
Developing new processes and practices
– Sycamore Entmt Grp can develop new processes and procedures in Motion Pictures 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Sycamore Entmt Grp 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sycamore Entmt Grp 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sycamore Entmt Grp is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sycamore Entmt Grp can utilize new technology in the field of Motion Pictures industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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. Sycamore Entmt Grp can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Sycamore Entmt Grp External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Sycamore Entmt Grp are -
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 Sycamore Entmt Grp in the Motion Pictures sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Sycamore Entmt Grp 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 Sycamore Entmt Grp prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sycamore Entmt Grp in Motion Pictures industry. The Motion Pictures 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sycamore Entmt Grp is facing in Motion Pictures sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Sycamore Entmt Grp 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.
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 wage structure of Sycamore Entmt Grp
– 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 Sycamore Entmt Grp.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sycamore Entmt Grp has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Motion Pictures industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sycamore Entmt Grp needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Motion Pictures 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 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. Sycamore Entmt Grp needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Motion Pictures industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sycamore Entmt Grp 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 Motion Pictures industry and other sectors.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Motion Pictures industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Sycamore Entmt Grp can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Sycamore Entmt Grp.
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 Sycamore Entmt Grp business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sycamore Entmt Grp Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Sycamore Entmt Grp 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 Sycamore Entmt Grp 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 Sycamore Entmt Grp 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 Sycamore Entmt Grp 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 Sycamore Entmt Grp needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.