Smaaash Entertainment (SMSH) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Smaaash Entertainment (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Smaaash Entertainment is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices,
wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Smaaash Entertainment
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Smaaash Entertainment can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Smaaash Entertainment, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Smaaash Entertainment 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 Smaaash Entertainment can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Smaaash Entertainment
2. Improving business portfolio management of Smaaash Entertainment
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Smaaash Entertainment
Strengths of Smaaash Entertainment | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Smaaash Entertainment are -
Innovation driven organization
– Smaaash Entertainment is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Smaaash Entertainment has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Smaaash Entertainment have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Smaaash Entertainment is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Smaaash Entertainment 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
– Smaaash Entertainment is one of the leading players in the industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Smaaash Entertainment in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Smaaash Entertainment is one of the leading players in the 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.
Learning organization
- Smaaash Entertainment 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 Smaaash Entertainment is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Smaaash Entertainment emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Smaaash Entertainment comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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
– Smaaash Entertainment has one of the best training and development program in 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Smaaash Entertainment has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Smaaash Entertainment staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Smaaash Entertainment is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Smaaash Entertainment 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Smaaash Entertainment has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Smaaash Entertainment to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Smaaash Entertainment to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Smaaash Entertainment | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Smaaash Entertainment are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Smaaash Entertainment, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Smaaash Entertainment 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 Smaaash Entertainment is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Smaaash Entertainment 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 industry.
Need for greater diversity
– Smaaash Entertainment 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Smaaash Entertainment is just above the 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 Smaaash Entertainment, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Smaaash Entertainment has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Smaaash Entertainment should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Smaaash Entertainment is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Smaaash Entertainment needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Smaaash Entertainment to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Smaaash Entertainment needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Smaaash Entertainment can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Smaaash Entertainment is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Smaaash Entertainment 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Smaaash Entertainment is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Smaaash Entertainment to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Smaaash Entertainment Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Smaaash Entertainment are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Smaaash Entertainment in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Smaaash Entertainment is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Smaaash Entertainment can utilize new technology in the field of industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Smaaash Entertainment 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 Smaaash Entertainment to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Smaaash Entertainment 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Smaaash Entertainment can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Smaaash Entertainment to increase its market reach. Smaaash Entertainment 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Smaaash Entertainment in the industry. Now Smaaash Entertainment can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Smaaash Entertainment can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Smaaash Entertainment 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. Smaaash Entertainment 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Smaaash Entertainment can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Smaaash Entertainment operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Smaaash Entertainment can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Smaaash Entertainment 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Smaaash Entertainment 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.
Threats Smaaash Entertainment External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Smaaash Entertainment are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Smaaash Entertainment with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Smaaash Entertainment 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.
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 Smaaash Entertainment in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Smaaash Entertainment may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Smaaash Entertainment 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 industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of Smaaash Entertainment
– 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 Smaaash Entertainment.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Smaaash Entertainment in industry. The 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.
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 Smaaash Entertainment.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Smaaash Entertainment 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 Smaaash Entertainment prominent markets.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Smaaash Entertainment can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Smaaash Entertainment needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Smaaash Entertainment can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Smaaash Entertainment is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Smaaash Entertainment 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 industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Smaaash Entertainment Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Smaaash Entertainment 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 Smaaash Entertainment 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 Smaaash Entertainment 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 Smaaash Entertainment 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 Smaaash Entertainment needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.