Beijing Media Corp (1000) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Advertising
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Beijing Media Corp (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Beijing Media Corp is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Beijing Media Corp
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Beijing Media Corp can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Beijing Media Corp, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Beijing Media Corp 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 Beijing Media Corp can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Beijing Media Corp
2. Improving business portfolio management of Beijing Media Corp
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Advertising sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Beijing Media Corp
Strengths of Beijing Media Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Beijing Media Corp are -
Organizational Resilience of Beijing Media Corp
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Beijing Media Corp does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Beijing Media Corp is one of the most innovative firm in Advertising sector.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Beijing Media Corp 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Advertising industry
– Beijing Media Corp is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Beijing Media Corp 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.
Digital Transformation in Advertising industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Beijing Media Corp digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Beijing Media Corp 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Beijing Media Corp comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Advertising 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Beijing Media Corp has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Beijing Media Corp 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 brand equity
– Beijing Media Corp has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Beijing Media Corp to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Beijing Media Corp in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Beijing Media Corp has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Beijing Media Corp to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Advertising
– Beijing Media Corp is one of the leading players in the Advertising industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Advertising industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Beijing Media Corp 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
– Beijing Media Corp is one of the leading players in the Advertising industry in Hong Kong. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Hong Kong. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses of Beijing Media Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Beijing Media Corp are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Beijing Media Corp, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Advertising 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.
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 Beijing Media Corp supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Beijing Media Corp is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Beijing Media Corp vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ less understanding of Beijing Media Corp strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Beijing Media Corp 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Beijing Media Corp has high operating costs in the Advertising industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Beijing Media Corp lucrative customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Beijing Media Corp products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Beijing Media Corp needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Beijing Media Corp needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Advertising industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Beijing Media Corp can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Beijing Media Corp is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Advertising industry, Beijing Media Corp 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Beijing Media Corp has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Advertising industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Skills based hiring in Advertising industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Beijing Media Corp 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Advertising industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, Beijing Media Corp 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 Advertising industry.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Beijing Media Corp is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Advertising industry, but Beijing Media Corp needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Beijing Media Corp to focus more on services in the Advertising industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Beijing Media Corp Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Beijing Media Corp are -
Buying journey improvements
– Beijing Media Corp can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Advertising 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.
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 Beijing Media Corp 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Beijing Media Corp 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Beijing Media Corp 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Beijing Media Corp 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 Beijing Media Corp to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Advertising industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Beijing Media Corp in the Advertising industry. Now Beijing Media Corp 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 Beijing Media Corp to increase its market reach. Beijing Media Corp 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Advertising industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Beijing Media Corp 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. Beijing Media Corp 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Beijing Media Corp has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Advertising industry. This can help Beijing Media Corp to build a more holistic ecosystem for Beijing Media Corp products in the Advertising 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 Beijing Media Corp 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Beijing Media Corp can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Beijing Media Corp operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Advertising sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Beijing Media Corp has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Advertising sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Beijing Media Corp to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Beijing Media Corp 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, Beijing Media Corp 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.
Threats Beijing Media Corp External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Beijing Media Corp are -
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. Beijing Media Corp needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Advertising industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Beijing Media Corp
– 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 Beijing Media Corp.
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 Beijing Media Corp.
Environmental challenges
– Beijing Media Corp 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. Beijing Media Corp can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Advertising industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Beijing Media Corp in Advertising industry. The Advertising 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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Advertising industry are lowering. It can presents Beijing Media Corp with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Advertising sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Beijing Media Corp 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 Advertising industry and other sectors.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Advertising industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Beijing Media Corp can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Beijing Media Corp 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 Advertising industry.
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 Beijing Media Corp in the Advertising sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Beijing Media Corp 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 Beijing Media Corp Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Beijing Media Corp 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 Beijing Media Corp 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 Beijing Media Corp 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 Beijing Media Corp 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 Beijing Media Corp needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.