SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Splendid Medien (Germany)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Splendid Medien is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Splendid Medien can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Splendid Medien, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Splendid Medien 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 Splendid Medien can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Splendid Medien
2. Improving business portfolio management of Splendid Medien
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Germany
4. Making a Motion Pictures sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Splendid Medien
Strengths of Splendid Medien | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Splendid Medien are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Splendid Medien in Motion Pictures industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Motion Pictures industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Splendid Medien digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Splendid Medien 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 Motion Pictures industry
– Splendid Medien 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 Splendid Medien 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Splendid Medien is present in almost all the verticals within the Motion Pictures industry. This has provided Splendid Medien 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
– Splendid Medien 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 Germany 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Splendid Medien 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 Splendid Medien have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Splendid Medien in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Splendid Medien has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Splendid Medien to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Splendid Medien
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Splendid Medien does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Splendid Medien is one of the most innovative firm in Motion Pictures sector.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Splendid Medien has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Splendid Medien 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 lead change in Motion Pictures
– Splendid Medien is one of the leading players in the Motion Pictures industry in Germany. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Motion Pictures industry in Germany but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Splendid Medien in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Splendid Medien | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Splendid Medien are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Splendid Medien has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Motion Pictures industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Splendid Medien is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Splendid Medien to provide better information regarding Motion Pictures products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
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 Splendid Medien supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Splendid Medien is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Splendid Medien vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Skills based hiring in Motion Pictures industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Splendid Medien 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Splendid Medien 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 Splendid Medien lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Splendid Medien has some of the most successful models in the Motion Pictures industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Splendid Medien should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Motion Pictures industry, Splendid Medien 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Splendid Medien strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Splendid Medien 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Splendid Medien, in the dynamic environment of Motion Pictures industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Splendid Medien has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Splendid Medien 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 Splendid Medien ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Splendid Medien 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 Splendid Medien has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Splendid Medien Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Splendid Medien are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Splendid Medien is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Splendid Medien 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Splendid Medien 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Splendid Medien 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 Splendid Medien to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Splendid Medien in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Motion Pictures industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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. Splendid Medien can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Splendid Medien 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 Motion Pictures industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Splendid Medien 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. Splendid Medien 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Splendid Medien 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 Splendid Medien to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Splendid Medien to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Splendid Medien 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Splendid Medien 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Splendid Medien to increase its market reach. Splendid Medien 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Splendid Medien 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Splendid Medien 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.
Threats Splendid Medien External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Splendid Medien are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Splendid Medien 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Motion Pictures industry are lowering. It can presents Splendid Medien with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Motion Pictures 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. Splendid Medien 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Splendid Medien 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Splendid Medien 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.
Environmental challenges
– Splendid Medien 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. Splendid Medien can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Motion Pictures 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.
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 Splendid Medien.
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 Splendid Medien in the Motion Pictures sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Splendid Medien
– 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 Splendid Medien.
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. Splendid Medien needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Motion Pictures industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Splendid Medien is facing in Motion Pictures sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Splendid Medien Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Splendid Medien 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 Splendid Medien 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 Splendid Medien 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 Splendid Medien 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 Splendid Medien needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
