SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Guizhou BC&TV (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Guizhou BC&TV is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, 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 Guizhou BC&TV can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Guizhou BC&TV, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Guizhou BC&TV 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 Guizhou BC&TV can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Guizhou BC&TV
2. Improving business portfolio management of Guizhou BC&TV
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Broadcasting & Cable TV sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Guizhou BC&TV
Strengths of Guizhou BC&TV | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Guizhou BC&TV are -
High brand equity
– Guizhou BC&TV has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Guizhou BC&TV to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Guizhou BC&TV is one of the most innovative firm in Broadcasting & Cable TV sector.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Guizhou BC&TV 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.
Ability to lead change in Broadcasting & Cable TV
– Guizhou BC&TV is one of the leading players in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Guizhou BC&TV in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Guizhou BC&TV 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Guizhou BC&TV is present in almost all the verticals within the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. This has provided Guizhou BC&TV 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.
Analytics focus
– Guizhou BC&TV 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 China 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– Guizhou BC&TV has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Guizhou BC&TV to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Guizhou BC&TV to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Guizhou BC&TV has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Guizhou BC&TV 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Guizhou BC&TV 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Guizhou BC&TV in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Guizhou BC&TV
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Guizhou BC&TV does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of Guizhou BC&TV | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Guizhou BC&TV are -
Skills based hiring in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Guizhou BC&TV 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Guizhou BC&TV is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry, but Guizhou BC&TV needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Guizhou BC&TV to focus more on services in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Guizhou BC&TV has some of the most successful models in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Guizhou BC&TV should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Guizhou BC&TV is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Guizhou BC&TV 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 Guizhou BC&TV 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Guizhou BC&TV 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV industry using digital technology.
Lack of clear differentiation of Guizhou BC&TV products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Guizhou BC&TV needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High dependence on Guizhou BC&TV ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Guizhou BC&TV still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Guizhou BC&TV has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Guizhou BC&TV 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Guizhou BC&TV, in the dynamic environment of Broadcasting & Cable TV industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Guizhou BC&TV has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Guizhou BC&TV 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.
Guizhou BC&TV Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Guizhou BC&TV are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Guizhou BC&TV 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Guizhou BC&TV 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 Guizhou BC&TV to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Guizhou BC&TV 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Guizhou BC&TV in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. Now Guizhou BC&TV can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Guizhou BC&TV to increase its market reach. Guizhou BC&TV 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.
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 Guizhou BC&TV 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Guizhou BC&TV 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Guizhou BC&TV 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Guizhou BC&TV 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 Guizhou BC&TV to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Guizhou BC&TV to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Guizhou BC&TV 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 Guizhou BC&TV to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Guizhou BC&TV can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Guizhou BC&TV operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Broadcasting & Cable TV sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Guizhou BC&TV 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. Guizhou BC&TV 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Guizhou BC&TV can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Guizhou BC&TV External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Guizhou BC&TV are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Guizhou BC&TV 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV industry and other sectors.
Increasing wage structure of Guizhou BC&TV
– 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 Guizhou BC&TV.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Broadcasting & Cable TV industry are lowering. It can presents Guizhou BC&TV with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Broadcasting & Cable TV sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Guizhou BC&TV 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 Guizhou BC&TV prominent markets.
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 Guizhou BC&TV in the Broadcasting & Cable TV sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Guizhou BC&TV is facing in Broadcasting & Cable TV sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Guizhou BC&TV in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. The Broadcasting & Cable TV 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
– Guizhou BC&TV 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 Broadcasting & Cable TV industry regulations.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Guizhou BC&TV 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.
Environmental challenges
– Guizhou BC&TV 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. Guizhou BC&TV can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Guizhou BC&TV 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.
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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Guizhou BC&TV 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 Guizhou BC&TV Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Guizhou BC&TV 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 Guizhou BC&TV 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 Guizhou BC&TV 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 Guizhou BC&TV 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 Guizhou BC&TV needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.