Prime Media Group (PRT) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Broadcasting & Cable TV
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Prime Media Group (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Prime Media Group is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Prime Media Group
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Prime Media Group can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Prime Media Group, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Prime Media Group 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 Prime Media Group can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Prime Media Group
2. Improving business portfolio management of Prime Media Group
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Broadcasting & Cable TV sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Prime Media Group
Strengths of Prime Media Group | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Prime Media Group are -
High brand equity
– Prime Media Group has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Prime Media Group to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Prime Media Group 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Prime Media Group in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Prime Media Group digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Prime Media Group 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– Prime Media Group is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Prime Media Group has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Prime Media Group 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Prime Media Group is one of the leading players in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry in Australia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Australia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Prime Media Group has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Prime Media Group staying ahead in the Broadcasting & Cable TV 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 Prime Media Group 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Prime Media Group 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– Prime Media Group has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Prime Media Group to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Prime Media Group to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Broadcasting & Cable TV
– Prime Media Group is one of the leading players in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Prime Media Group in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Prime Media Group | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Prime Media Group are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Prime Media Group 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 Prime Media Group lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Prime Media Group, in the dynamic environment of Broadcasting & Cable TV industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Prime Media Group 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, Prime Media Group is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Prime Media Group 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Prime Media Group 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 Prime Media Group products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Prime Media Group needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Prime Media Group 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.
High dependence on Prime Media Group ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Prime Media Group 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 Prime Media Group has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ less understanding of Prime Media Group strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Prime Media Group 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Prime Media Group 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Prime Media Group 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. Prime Media Group should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Prime Media Group needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Prime Media Group Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Prime Media Group are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Prime Media Group 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
– Prime Media Group 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.
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. Prime Media Group 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. Prime Media Group 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Prime Media Group 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.
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. Prime Media Group can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Developing new processes and practices
– Prime Media Group 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Prime Media Group 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Prime Media Group to increase its market reach. Prime Media Group 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 Prime Media Group has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. This can help Prime Media Group to build a more holistic ecosystem for Prime Media Group products in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Prime Media Group 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, Prime Media Group can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Prime Media Group operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Broadcasting & Cable TV sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Prime Media Group 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 Prime Media Group to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Prime Media Group to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Prime Media Group can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Prime Media Group External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Prime Media Group are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Prime Media Group 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 Prime Media Group 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 Prime Media Group in the Broadcasting & Cable TV sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Prime Media Group 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.
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 Prime Media Group 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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Prime Media Group 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Prime Media Group is facing in Broadcasting & Cable TV sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Prime Media Group 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.
Increasing wage structure of Prime Media Group
– 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 Prime Media Group.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Prime Media Group has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Broadcasting & Cable TV industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Prime Media Group 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Broadcasting & Cable TV industry are lowering. It can presents Prime Media Group 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.
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. Prime Media Group 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Prime Media Group Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Prime Media Group 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 Prime Media Group 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 Prime Media Group 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 Prime Media Group 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 Prime Media Group needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
