Strategic Management Businesss with Marketing Degree Assignment

Strategic Management Businesss with Marketing Degree - Assignment Example SWOT Analysis The primary strength of Virgin is its strong presence in the market. It could be realized that it’s the number one brand in UK with strong presence in Europe and US. In US is has performed while competition with the giants like Apple TV and Google TV. A growing tendency for consumers to access increasingly personalized on-demand content has spawned various devices and gadgets seeking to provide an integrated experience across a proliferating number of online and mobile platforms, has encouraged Virgin Media to come up with innovative technologies in the market with regard to media and communications. The company is the largest providers in UK in terms of residential broadband internet, TV and telephone services if compared by number of customers. (VMED Annual Report, 2010) Another Strength of VMED is its advanced and excellent Research & Development capability, efficient and effective supply chain, and mass production at a competitive production cost. These compe titive strategies of VMED have helped it to become a market leader in many products. In 2010, VMED launched TiVo set top boxes, thereby developing next generation set top boxes by partnering with TiVo Inc (VMED Annual Report, 2010). This was a shear display of Research initiatives of the company. With the use of technologies like e-commerce, the company had created an efficient supply chain which helps it with seamless flow of information and products among resources. Mass production done by VMED helps it achieve economies of scale thereby increasing operating profits of the company. The primary weakness of the company is that it is investing a lot of amount in restructure activities involving spin-off of certain subsidiaries and disposal of assets. In Jun-10, the company also sold British Sky Broadcasting as well as Kestrel Broadcasting as a part of its restructuring and disposal activities (VMED Annual Report, 2010). In the same year company also recognized impairment charges from such transactions. These activities may be beneficial for the long wrong if executed correctly but they reduce profit making capability of the company. The company should concentrate more on the activities involving expansion and research for innovative technologies. Another Weakness of VMED is its low market share in emerging economies. To be a cash cow for the future every technology company should be in search for opportunities in the emerging markets as they give the advantage of escalated growth compared to developed markets where growth stagnates after a point of time. It should be noted that VMED has a low presence in emerging economies e.g. India whilst many other companies like Apple and Sony are aggressively gaining market share in these countries. To retain market capitalization VMED needs to expand its operations aggressively to emerging countries. Primary opportunity for VMED is expanding into markets with the help of joint ventures, tie-up and agreement with other com panies. This would give VMED the advantage of achieving economies of scale and also act as a risk hedging activity while entering new markets. It could be realized from the fact that in 2009, VMED entered into patent cross license agreement with IBM (VMED Announcements, 2011). The Consumer Electronics Association, an industry trade group, expects US sales of connected TVs to grow from about 3.2