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Entercom Communications Corp. SWOT Analysis / Matrix
Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers
SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by Entercom Communications Corp. managers to do a situational analysis of the company . It is an important technique to map out the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) Entercom Communications Corp. is facing in its current business environment.
The Entercom Communications Corp. is one of the leading firms in its industry. Entercom Communications Corp. maintains its dominant position in market by critically analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis a highly interactive process and requires effective coordination among various departments within the firm such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.
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The SWOT Analysis framework facilitates an organization to identify the internal strategic factors such as -strengths and weaknesses, & external strategic factors such as - opportunities and threats. It leads to a 2X2 matrix – also called SWOT Matrix.
The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the Entercom Communications Corp. to develop four types of strategies:
- SO (strengths-opportunities) Strategies
- WO (weaknesses-opportunities) Strategies
- ST (strengths-threats) Strategies
- WT (weaknesses-threats) Strategies
SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective
The main purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a firm can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Entercom Communications Corp. strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.
Step by Step Guide to Entercom Communications Corp. SWOT Analysis
Strengths of Entercom Communications Corp. – Internal Strategic Factors
As one of the leading companies in its industry, Entercom Communications Corp. has numerous strengths that help it to thrive in the market place. These strengths not only help it to protect the market share in existing markets but also help in penetrating new markets. Based on Fern Fort University extensive research – some of the strengths of Entercom Communications Corp. are –
Read - Entercom Communications Corp. Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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- Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
- Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Entercom Communications Corp. products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
- Strong dealer community – It has built a culture among distributor & dealers where the dealers not only promote company’s products but also invest in training the sales team to explain to the customer how he/she can extract the maximum benefits out of the products.
- High level of customer satisfaction – the company with its dedicated customer relationship management department has able to achieve a high level of customer satisfaction among present customers and good brand equity among the potential customers.
- Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Entercom Communications Corp. is investing huge resources in training and development of its employees resulting in a workforce that is not only highly skilled but also motivated to achieve more.
- Strong Free Cash Flow – Entercom Communications Corp. has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
- Strong distribution network – Over the years Entercom Communications Corp. has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
- Successful track record of integrating complimentary firms through mergers & acquisition. It has successfully integrated number of technology companies in the past few years to streamline its operations and to build a reliable supply chain.
Weakness of Entercom Communications Corp. – Internal Strategic Factors
Weakness are the areas where Entercom Communications Corp. can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where a firm can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its competitive advantage and strategic positioning.
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- Days inventory is high compare to the competitors – making the company raise more capital to invest in the channel. This can impact the long term growth of Entercom Communications Corp.
- Financial planning is not done properly and efficiently. The current asset ratio and liquid asset ratios suggest that the company can use the cash more efficiently than what it is doing at present.
- Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Entercom Communications Corp. is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
- Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Entercom Communications Corp. is spending above the industry average on Research and Development, it has not been able to compete with the leading players in the industry in terms of innovation. It has come across as a mature firm looking forward to bring out products based on tested features in the market.
- The company has not being able to tackle the challenges present by the new entrants in the segment and has lost small market share in the niche categories. Entercom Communications Corp. has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
- There are gaps in the product range sold by the company. This lack of choice can give a new competitor a foothold in the market.
- Not very good at product demand forecasting leading to higher rate of missed opportunities compare to its competitors. One of the reason why the days inventory is high compare to its competitors is that Entercom Communications Corp. is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
Opportunities for Entercom Communications Corp. – External Strategic Factors
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- Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Entercom Communications Corp. to capture new customers and increase its market share.
- New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Entercom Communications Corp. . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
- The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Entercom Communications Corp. to increase its profitability.
- Organization’s core competencies can be a success in similar other products field. A comparative example could be - GE healthcare research helped it in developing better Oil drilling machines.
- New customers from online channel – Over the past few years the company has invested vast sum of money into the online platform. This investment has opened new sales channel for Entercom Communications Corp.. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
- The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Entercom Communications Corp. to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
- The new technology provides an opportunity to Entercom Communications Corp. to practices differentiated pricing strategy in the new market. It will enable the firm to maintain its loyal customers with great service and lure new customers through other value oriented propositions.
- Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Entercom Communications Corp.’s products thus providing an opportunity to the company - either to boost its profitability or pass on the benefits to the customers to gain market share.
Threats Entercom Communications Corp. Facing - External Strategic Factors
- The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
- The demand of the highly profitable products is seasonal in nature and any unlikely event during the peak season may impact the profitability of the company in short to medium term.
- Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Entercom Communications Corp. in those markets.
- Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
- Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
- Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Entercom Communications Corp.’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
- Liability laws in different countries are different and Entercom Communications Corp. may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
- Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Entercom Communications Corp.
Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Entercom Communications Corp.
Although the SWOT analysis is widely used as a strategic planning tool, the analysis does have its share of limitations.
- Certain capabilities or factors of an organization can be both a strength and weakness at the same time. This is one of the major limitations of SWOT analysis . For example changing environmental regulations can be both a threat to company it can also be an opportunity in a sense that it will enable the company to be on a level playing field or at advantage to competitors if it able to develop the products faster than the competitors.
- SWOT does not show how to achieve a competitive advantage, so it must not be an end in itself.
- The matrix is only a starting point for a discussion on how proposed strategies could be implemented. It provided an evaluation window but not an implementation plan based on strategic competitiveness of Entercom Communications Corp.
- SWOT is a static assessment - analysis of status quo with few prospective changes. As circumstances, capabilities, threats, and strategies change, the dynamics of a competitive environment may not be revealed in a single matrix.
- SWOT analysis may lead the firm to overemphasize a single internal or external factor in formulating strategies. There are interrelationships among the key internal and external factors that SWOT does not reveal that may be important in devising strategies.
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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Entercom Communications Corp.
In light of the above mentioned limitations of the SWOT analysis / matrix, corporate managers decided to provide weightage to each internal strength and weakness of the firm. Organizations also assess the likelihood of events taking place in the coming future and how strong their impact could be on company's performance.
This method is called Weighted SWOT analysis. It is better than doing simplistic SWOT analysis because with Weighted SWOT Analysis Entercom Communications Corp. managers can focus on the most critical factors and discount the non-important one. It also solves the long list problem where organizations ends up making a long list but none of the factors deemed too critical.
Limitation of Weighted SWOT analysis of Entercom Communications Corp.
This approach also suffers from one major drawback - it focus on individual importance of factor rather than how they are collectively important and impact the business holistically.
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SWOT Worksheet & Template
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References / Citations & Bibliography
- M. E. Porter, Competitive Strategy(New York: Free Press, 1980)
- A. D. Chandler, Strategy and Structure (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1962)
- O. E. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies(New York: Free Press, 1975);
- L. Wrigley, Divisional Autonomy and Diversification (PhD, Harvard Business School, 1970)
- R. E. White, Generic Business Strategies, Organizational Context and Performance: An Empirical Investigation, Strategic Management Journal7 (1986)
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