Xilam (XIL) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Xilam (France)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Xilam is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Xilam

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Xilam can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Xilam, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Xilam 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Xilam can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Xilam
2. Improving business portfolio management of Xilam
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in France
4. Making a Motion Pictures sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Xilam

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Strengths of Xilam | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Xilam are -

Learning organization

- Xilam 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 Xilam is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Xilam emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Innovation driven organization

– Xilam is one of the most innovative firm in Motion Pictures sector.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Xilam is one of the leading players in the Motion Pictures industry in France. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in France. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Xilam 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.

Organizational Resilience of Xilam

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Xilam does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Xilam 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.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Xilam has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Xilam 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Xilam is present in almost all the verticals within the Motion Pictures industry. This has provided Xilam 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 Xilam in Motion Pictures industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Xilam 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 Xilam have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Training and development

– Xilam 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.

Digital Transformation in Motion Pictures industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Xilam digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Xilam 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.

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Weaknesses of Xilam | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Xilam are -

Employees’ less understanding of Xilam strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Xilam 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.

Need for greater diversity

– Xilam 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.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Xilam has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Motion Pictures industry over the last five years. Xilam 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.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Xilam is one of the leading players in the Motion Pictures industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Motion Pictures industry in last five years.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Xilam needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Motion Pictures industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Xilam can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Xilam is planning to shift buying processes online.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Xilam 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.

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 Xilam supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Xilam is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Xilam vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Xilam is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Motion Pictures industry, but Xilam needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Xilam to focus more on services in the Motion Pictures industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

High dependence on Xilam ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Xilam 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 Xilam has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Xilam 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 Xilam lucrative customers.

Skills based hiring in Motion Pictures industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Xilam 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.

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Xilam Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Xilam are -

Leveraging digital technologies

– Xilam 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.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Motion Pictures industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Xilam 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. Xilam 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

– Xilam can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Motion Pictures 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Xilam 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.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Motion Pictures industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Xilam can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Xilam is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Xilam 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.

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 Xilam 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Xilam 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Xilam 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 Xilam to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Developing new processes and practices

– Xilam 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Xilam has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Motion Pictures industry. This can help Xilam to build a more holistic ecosystem for Xilam products in the Motion Pictures industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Xilam 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 Xilam can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

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Threats Xilam External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Xilam are -

Environmental challenges

– Xilam 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. Xilam can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Motion Pictures industry.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Xilam has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Motion Pictures industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Xilam 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.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Xilam may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Motion Pictures sector.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Xilam 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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Xilam 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 Motion Pictures industry.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Xilam 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.

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. Xilam 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.

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. Xilam needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Motion Pictures industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Regulatory challenges

– Xilam 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 Motion Pictures industry regulations.

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.

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 Xilam business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

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. Xilam can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Increasing wage structure of Xilam

– 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 Xilam.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Xilam Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Xilam 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 Xilam 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 Xilam 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 Xilam 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 Xilam needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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