Video Transcript: Lecture 5
Hello, hello, hello, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Today, we are talking about SWOT analysis, so that's one of the things that we'll be talking about. Many of you may have heard of this term before, and we will be going into quite a bit of detail about it, but it stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. So we'll be talking about it. There's some supplemental material that you'll be reading and looking at that that talks about SWOT and kind of breaks it down in different ways, but I just wanted to bring this up briefly, because this is primarily what we will be speaking about. So before we get into SWOT, let's just talk about how the last three lectures, and as we move into this lecture, they were talking about, we've talked about organizational performance, we talked about internal and external environments, and now we need to talk about how we can take all that information and we can assimilate it and bring it together, in a way, into a framework, if you will, that will be that can be used to analyze and figure out what the strategic issues are, and then come up with a solution on it, and Then eventually develop a strategic plan. So So with that, I want to bring back up that chart, and I'm going to move this over, because all we need to focus on, and we will talk about SWOT detail, so strength. So before we get there to kind of frame this. What I want you to do is I want you to think about a company, just any company, and maybe it's your company, if you're in the workforce, or somebody you work for in the past, or maybe it's a church, maybe it's where, whatever, it doesn't matter. But for the purposes of this, I want you to think about something, and then I think that will help give you practical application to what a SWOT is. So when we talk about a SWOT, we're talking about strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and let's focus on strengths. So what are some things that your company does well? So you know, one thing that certainly Christian leaders does well is they do a good job of delivering content worldwide that's affordable, and that's something that they do well, their qualities that separate them from their competitors is different from other companies. But, you know, we can certainly talk about those to not just use them as an example, but to use somebody else as an example, a quality that separates apple from most of their competitors, is the fact that their system is completely integrated. So your iPhone works well with your watch, which works well with your computer, which works well with your iPad, which works well with your name the device, name the device, name the device. They're all integrated together, and it's one very closed, tight ecosystem. So, you know, Apple TV is certainly, I guess it's not really visible, but Apple TV is certainly part of that ecosystem. But it's, again, it's, it's a very closed ecosystem. So in fact, recently, Apple TV has opened up to some Android users, but for the most part, everything is within the Apple System, and that is a quality that sets them apart. Internal resources, skilled and knowledgeable staff. Certainly that is, if you remember me talking about that technology company out of Denver, Colorado, they certainly make a focus to hire really, really, really
talented, very, very smart people. So that is a strength of theirs, and then tangible assets, and we know what that term is now, is certainly a strength as well. So whether that's intellectual property, whether that's having a really cool building, whether that's having a lot of cash on hand, certainly that can be a strength. So I'll give you an example, since we talked about SpaceX when we're talking about internal Blue Origin and Jake and Jeff Bezos, who is one of the richest people in the world, offered to to pick up on NASA shortfall, budget shortfall, if, if they were to open up competition on certain contracts and things like that. So he was going to write a check to NASA for $2 billion or something. That's certainly a strength when you have that much expendable capital, and you can write a check to somebody to to take care of their budget shortfall. So these are all shrinks. You know, innovation certainly would be a strength as well. You know, first to market on things those, those kind of things are also strengths. So that is what strengths are. Let's talk a minute about weaknesses, actually. Before we do, I'm going to, I'm going to bring up something so and it should be coming up, yep, okay, so this is exactly what I was looking for. Me bring that up. Here we go. So if we think about Apple, Apple computers, here are some of Apple's strength as number one ranked brand for the eighth consecutive year, has a brand value of $322 billion and I will tell you that quite a bit. It's locally iconic. So it's, it's known throughout the I just realized my mic, hopefully that sound hasn't been too bad, but it's, it's, it's brand iconic. Everybody knows who Apple is, and they're familiar with Apple has a lot of innovation, innovative products. Now, some may argue that Apple has kind of lost that a little bit over over the years, and that they have not had that much innovation. Certainly, there are a lot of forums dedicated to that and about how Apple has fallen off. But nonetheless, top technology, there's a brand of choice. They do a lot of research in their product designs, sustainability. They they have a they have a sustainability initiatives, and then they're continuing to expand their services. So if you take a look at this, you know this is certainly a an advantage is their revenue is just, it's just going through the roof. And remember, this is services revenue. This is not even product revenue. So it is services revenue. So they are doing very well. Before we talk about weaknesses for them, let's go here, and you can see here, these are things your company lacks, things that your competitors are doing better than you, resource limitations and then unclear, Unique Selling position. So our proposition Forgive me, so think about your company, and think about some of the things that that that you're that you're kind of going through the swamp with, and what are the some of the things that are your weaknesses. So one of, one of the places that I work with that, one of their weaknesses are they do not have a lot of marketing, and they do not put a lot of money into marketing. And certainly in their space, there's a lot of threats, there's a lot of emerging competitors, there's a lot of people that are trying to do what they're doing. So even though they're at the top of what what they're doing
right now, without putting marketing in, they're going to lose market share and those kind of things. So that is certainly a weakness of theirs. So what do you think Apple's weaknesses are? I can give you I mean, before I click over to the
slide, I want to give you a minute to think about it. Maybe pause the video. And write down some weaknesses, and let's see how close you are to this. Okay, are you ready? Here we go. So, yeah, this is number one, high priced products. Their products are not cheap. I think I said it in earlier video, but you know, certainly, when we're talking about Apple , you know, just alone right here, and I didn't buy everything. You know, certainly I did not buy everything. But, you know, there's like $5,000 worth of Apple products within like 10 feet of me. That's that they're very expensive. They They certainly put a premium on their products. They do not have a lot of advertising. They do their marketing through their retail stores. You're not going to see a lot of commercials or a lot of videos. Certainly you see some, but certainly they have a lot what, a lot less than brands like Samsung and PNG and Coca Cola and even Microsoft. Microsoft has a lot more advertising than they do. They are entering areas that there's already intense competition. So for their credit card. Certainly, Citibank and Chase are doing pretty well there they're they're offering Apple Pay, which is similar to PayPal, certainly, when we get into their video content arena, Netflix and Disney, which Disney is a partner of them, but, but certainly Netflix and Disney has their own thing going as well. They do not really have a lot of competence in these areas, and that is a weakness, another one, and we talked about this as a strength, but it's certainly also weakness is they have a closed ecosystem, so they have incompatible, incompatibility with other software and that is seen as a weakness. Certainly, privacy is an issue and is seen as a weakness. And then, you know, certainly with any large company, you'll see this a lot, but unfair business practices are are something that plagues them as well. And I thought, you know, here we go again with my email. So let me, let me close that out. I thought I took care of that, but I guess not so now we talk about opportunities. So there's opportunities to to do things with your products in underserved markets. So, you know, Apple, you know, maybe has an opportunity to offer a lower price point phone or something, and serve a market that they don't traditionally do. Apple has tried this a little bit, but their products are still pretty expensive, but certainly they have tried to do that a little bit. Another opportunities is few competitors in your space. If you remember, I talked about an app that's trying to gain traction, and there's not a lot of competitors in their space. In fact, there's none right now. There will be, very soon, in 40 days, I believe there will be another competitor for them, but there's few competitors in their area, and another opportunity is emerging need for your product or service. So you know, certainly COVID has shown that there's been a need for different things than there were in the past. Cleaning products, hand sanitizers are are certainly in more demand than they were previously. And then press and media
coverage of your company here, you can really leverage social media. And, you know, when things go viral, they go viral. I can give you an example of that, somebody who has made his career on on, you know, going viral and marketing and taking advantage of opportunities is this guy. His name is Mark Rober, and if you have not seen his YouTube videos, they are pretty amazing. They they do a bunch of different things, like how to make an unbreakable ice cream safe. He has gone viral with glitter bombing people. I haven't seen this one yet, but certainly when you build 100,000 dominoes in 24 hours, that is a quite a bit Squirrel. Squirrel maze is always a good one. Anyway, when you can use media as an advantage and you it allows you to do very cool things. In Mark Rober case, it allowed him to quit his job and become a full time YouTuber. By the way, he worked for Apple previously. So what is Apple doing? You know, you think about your company and and as you do, we will now look at what Apple is doing. So you think about opportunities. Apple has, pause the video and think about that, or your company, think about that, and then when you're ready, come back to us, and we will see what Apple's opportunities are. Okay, so their opportunities consistent customer growth. You know, you saw that. You saw that chart before, but they have retention rate of 92% and they have quite a loyal following. They have very, very qualified professionals in the field. They have expansive distribution network, which actually is they have pretty good one, in the sense that their distribution network is very large, and this says it's very limited, and leaves room for growth. But there is room for growth. I'll give you a good example. So I bought an iPad recently for work, and I got this iPad, and it took, it took, like, three or four days to get to me, or five days or something. Certainly, there is some opportunities for improvement there. Even though I live in a smaller town, certainly they would have to find a way to get their products to people a little bit quicker. They said another opportunity for them is using green technology. They are doing some work in this area, so I'm actually surprised that this was included on the list, but that is an opportunity for them, and then continuing to evolve in the smart wearable technology space. So one of the things that you may notice is I actually wear two. I wear an Apple Watch, which is smart technology, but I also wear this one, which is a different technology. This is an Amazon Halo, actually, and the reason I wear this is because it does a couple things that are better than Apple. For one, the battery doesn't die as quickly, so I'm able to track my sleep using this. And then this also does tone analysis, so it tells me if my tone is appropriate and if I'm speaking nicely to people, and what what my energy level is, and those kind of things. So that's something that Apple does not do, and it's certainly an opportunity for them. And then utilizing AI is another opportunity for them, as well as their self driving car software that they are working on and then expanding their streaming services. So Apple has a lot of threats, and we will talk about those momentarily, but before we do, let us go here and let's see what threats are. So threats can be
anything from emerging competitors to a changing regulatory environment to negative media coverage and negative press. And certainly we've been seeing that a lot. When companies take a stand or do not take a stand on certain things, there's been a lot of negative media coverage and then changing attitudes toward your company. So again, I said that there's certainly a lot of people who have problems with Apple's lack of inventiveness and innovation in the small, incremental changes that they're making. A lot of people are complaining about those as a as an issue with Apple, and they're kind of losing their innovation, the idea of innovation. They're losing that a little bit among their most loyal fan base. And I'll give you an example. I'm certainly one of those individuals who has questioned their innovation recently. I used to be an early adopter and adopt all their products whenever they came out, and certainly I have not done that. This is this iPhone. Is a couple models old, and the only reason I have this iPhone is because my other one I dropped and I broke and I couldn't repair it. So I had to get this one, or else I would have a much older iPhone. And it's just because I have not seen a lot of innovation in their products over the past few years. This this watch is the way this one. I just upgraded to this one, but I had three or four models ago, and the only reason I updated to this one is because my battery was dying and my other one so quickly that it was almost unusable. So I had to upgrade. And you may be saying, well, why don't you go and try a different product if you're complaining about them. And that's a valid question, a valid point, and my answer to you is, because I'm so integrated in the ecosystem, I'm kind of stuck. I have an Apple computer, even though that's a work computer, and then I have other things that are Apple related, and I'm just integrating the ecosystem, so it's hard for me to switch out of it, but certainly innovation would be something that I would or lack of innovation and my attitude change. And I know I'm not the only one toward Apple products is a threat to them, but let's see what some of the other threats are. So again, if you want to pause your video and kind of write down some ideas, feel free or think about your own company that you've been going through. This says that COVID and supply chain, especially in China, was a threat, and that certainly is one supply chain disruptions are counterfeits is always a threat. increasing competition and then and then other brands are using Android software to penetrate the market. And that is a threat, lawsuits, obviously, tariffs, and then politics which have entered the space, and you know, there's political pressure from certain governments that talk about backdoor encryption and allowing the government to to enter into a phone and see what's going on iPhones denying this, but this is certainly something that has been in the news. And then again, innovation that is not on this list, but certainly individuals thoughts on Apple products is changing, and I could show you some examples of that, but I don't think it's necessary. But if you would like any examples of that, there's a website called Mac rumors, M, A, C, well, Mac like
Macintosh and rumors, and you can go here, and you can go look at some of the articles, but if you really want to know what people are thinking, then you what I do is I always go to the comment section and read, read the comments and those. I'm not going to bring those up because they may have bad language or whatever, but you can go to the comments and you can see what people think about that. So I would certainly say that changing perceptions of their products is a threat as well. So the book talks about some other things related to SWOT, but I really wanted to focus on on SWOT at the primary portion of this lecture, remember to really think about what the strategic issue is and what you're trying to address, and then what you're trying to resolve. That's an important part of this process as well. Now hopefully explaining SWOT, and then thinking about and framing it with those external factors that we talked about, those internal factors, and then everything else. So you can bring it all together into that useful tool, and hopefully that helps clarify some of what, what what strategic management is, and what you do as a strategic manager. So we will shift now, now that we understand SWOT, we completed our SWOT. Our next module will focus on business level strategies, which we'll talk about differentiation, how to differentiate your product. We'll talk about best cost strategies. What cost strategy do you want to be at the upper end? Like Apple is do you want to be at the lower end? We will talk about things like cost leadership and and just understanding some of the other strategies that are related. So really looking forward to that module, looking forward to that lecture. But before we get there, let us close this one out in prayer. Heavenly Father. Thank you so much for the opportunity to come together. Lord, thank You for this class. Thank you for their diligence and watching these lectures and reading the material and completing the exercises. Lord, you know, going to school is tough. It's a lot of work, but these folks are committed to doing it, Lord, and I pray that you will bless them, and you will help their commitment bear fruit, Lord, for you, for your kingdom. Lord, so Lord, as we go out into the world and we step away from our classwork and go out into the world, I pray that you will bless us. You will help us to be good witnesses for you, and you will help us to to boldly proclaim Your name and have conversations about value and what you've done for us in our lives. Thank you Lord for this class and thank you for this opportunity in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you for joining me in prayer, and let us now go off into the world, finish our assignments and go into module six, selecting business level strategies. Thank you and have a wonderful day. Evening, morning, whatever it may be.