Glu Mobile Inc. SWOT Analysis / Matrix

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SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by Glu Mobile Inc. managers to do a situational analysis of the firm . It is an important technique to evalauate the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) Glu Mobile Inc. is facing in its current business environment.

The Glu Mobile Inc. is one of the leading companies in its industry. Glu Mobile Inc. maintains its prominent position in market by carefully analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis a highly interactive process and requires effective coordination among various departments within the company such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.

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The SWOT Analysis framework enables 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 known as SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the Glu Mobile Inc. 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 primary purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a company can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Glu Mobile Inc. strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Glu Mobile Inc. SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Glu Mobile Inc. – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, Glu Mobile Inc. 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 Glu Mobile Inc. are –

Read - Glu Mobile Inc. Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
Superb Performance in New Markets – Glu Mobile Inc. has built expertise at entering new markets and making success of them. The expansion has helped the organization to build new revenue stream and diversify the economic cycle risk in the markets it operates in.
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.
Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Glu Mobile Inc. is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
Strong Free Cash Flow – Glu Mobile Inc. has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
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.
Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.

Weakness of Glu Mobile Inc. – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Glu Mobile Inc. can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where an organization 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 Glu Mobile Inc.
High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Glu Mobile Inc. has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
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 Glu Mobile Inc. is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Glu Mobile Inc. 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.
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.
The marketing of the products left a lot to be desired. Even though the product is a success in terms of sale but its positioning and unique selling proposition is not clearly defined which can lead to the attacks in this segment from the competitors.
The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Glu Mobile Inc. are below the industry average.

Opportunities for Glu Mobile Inc. – 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 Glu Mobile Inc. to capture new customers and increase its market share.
Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Glu Mobile Inc. an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
The new technology provides an opportunity to Glu Mobile Inc. 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.
The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Glu Mobile Inc. to increase its profitability.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Glu Mobile Inc.’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.
Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Glu Mobile Inc. products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
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 Glu Mobile Inc.. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
Stable free cash flow provides opportunities to invest in adjacent product segments. With more cash in bank the company can invest in new technologies as well as in new products segments. This should open a window of opportunity for Glu Mobile Inc. in other product categories.

Threats Glu Mobile Inc. Facing - External Strategic Factors

The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
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.
New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Glu Mobile Inc.’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
Intense competition – Stable profitability has increased the number of players in the industry over last two years which has put downward pressure on not only profitability but also on overall sales.
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.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Glu Mobile Inc.

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 Glu Mobile Inc.
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 Glu Mobile Inc.

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 Glu Mobile Inc. 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 Glu Mobile Inc.

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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Example of Weighted SWOT Analysis

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SWOT Worksheet & Template

If you like to do your own SWOT analysis or want to make your own Weighted SWOT SWOT matrix then feel free to download Fern Fort University SWOT Analysis Template.

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)