WEEK 2 Strategic Plan is attached******* Refer back to the Week 2 company, Hoosier Media, Inc. Your consulting firm is now ready to present suggestions regarding the strategic plan of Hoosier Media, I

Internal and External Analysis

Student

University of Phoenix

BUS 475

9/4/18

Crib Sheet (stands alone on its own page directly after the title page)

Apply: Internal and External Environmental Analysis

You work for a consulting firm whose primary objective is to help businesses improve their strategic operations. Your firm recently was hired by a newspaper company named Hoosier Media Inc. The client's print newspaper circulation and subscriptions have declined, resulting in 30% lower revenues over the last five years. Online ad revenues have increased but currently account for just 5% of the company's revenue. You have been tasked with providing a comprehensive internal and external analysis to help the firm improve its business operations.

Create a minimum 1,050 word analysis that includes the following: 

• Identify economic, legal, and regulatory forces and trends.

• Critique how well the organization adapts to change.

• Discuss the primary internal organizational considerations.

• Discuss the primary external organization considerations.

• Identify the major issues and/or opportunities the company faces based on your analysis.

Text must be used as one of your cited references.

Use APA formatting to complete your paper.

Click the Assignment Files tab to submit your assignment.

Introduction

• Identify economic, legal, and regulatory forces and trends.

The Hoosier Media Inc., which employed our firms, was founded in 2011 which is located in Burnettsville at 600 S Main. The annual revenue for the company has been approximated to be $43,000. The company has been experiencing the massive decline in the circulation of the print newspaper which further resulted in lowering the company revenues by 30 percent for the last five years although the firm has been able to increase the online revenues which are accounting for the total of 5 percent of the entire revenues for the company (Hess, 2014). The paper is focusing on the comprehensive external and internal analysis of the company with the aim of determining the best possible techniques of improving the company’s operations (Brooks, Heffner, and Henderson, 2014).

The Political factors are concerned with the stability of the government which also enact the legal and regulatory forces through the functioning of the parliament, and legislation, the tax policies, environmental legislation and social. The political objective for instance if there is election it might impact the states order structures, and the new government might enact media laws and regulation that has an impact on the Hoosier Media Group Inc., (Hess, 2014).

Economic factors are changes in the advertising markets becoming narrow following the economic crisis; the government also reduced their expenses in the budget due to 2009 financial crisis resulting in the falling back of the state orders (Hess, 2014). The recession of 2009 had an impact on most governments resulting in the enactment of laws which impacts the Hoosier Media Inc. (Brooks, Heffner, and Henderson, 2014).

• Critique how well the organization adapts to change.

The Hoosier Media Group Inc. has been able to adapt to the changes in the economic world through developing the internal strengths discussed below, to adapt to the threats that the economic crises posed and becoming competitive in the highly competitive market. However, there is some weakness that has to enable the competitors to take advantage of the situation as well to penetrate the market (Hess, 2014). The firm responds to the legal and regulatory factors through submission to the government rules since disobedience or non-complacence can result in the closure of the business by the government (Nason, and Wiklund, 2018).

The paper applies PEST and SWOT analysis tools for the operation of the business and assessing the manner in which the Hoosier Media Inc., has been able to adapt to the changes and trends that are ongoing in the Media industry (Hess, 2014). The SWOT analysis is an immense technique that is important for the coordination among the diverse departments within the firm like the Finance department, marketing, management information systems, operation, and the Strategic planning department. In the SWOT analysis matrix the managers can develop the four strategies from the SWOT like SO (Strengths- opportunities strategies, WO (Weaknesses –Opportunities) strategies, ST (Strengths- threats) strategies and finally the WT (Weaknesses – threats strategies (Brooks, Heffner, and Henderson, 2014).

• Discuss the primary internal organizational considerations.

The SWOT Analysis is divided into internal strategic factors and the external strategic factor. The internal strategic factors are concerned with the numerous strengths that enable the company to thrive well in the market, the strengths are essential in the protection of the market share and penetrating into the new markets (Hess, 2014).

Strengths of Hoosier Media Group Inc.,

The firm has employees that are highly skilled through their successful learning and training programs since the company has been investing a huge amount of resources in developing and training their employees enabling the company to have the employee's support base that is enthusiastic about achieving more. Next is the outstanding company performance in their new market, Hoosier Media Inc., has superb expertise while entering the new markets resulting in great success (Hess, 2014). Such expansions have enabled the firm to build the news streams of revenues through the diversification of the economic cycle risk through the markets where it operates. The company also has the strong free flow of cash, providing the company with the resources at hand for the expansion of the company. The activities automation has led to consistency for the Hoosier Media Group quality, enabling the company to soar even higher depending on the company demand (Nason, and Wiklund, 2018).

The weakness of Hoosier Media Group Inc.,

These weaknesses are the point at which the Hoosier Media Group should improve, building on the competitive advantage through their strategic positioning. The Hoosier Media Group Inc. needs more investments in the technologies that are new given the expansion scales in diverse geographical areas the company is planning to venture. The gaps between the ranges of the products which are sold by the company have given the competitors the loophole to penetrate the market (Brooks, Heffner, and Henderson, 2014). The Hoosier Media Inc. has not been successful at integrating companies having a diverse culture of work; the company has a history of failure at merging different firms that have a distinct culture. The product propositioning and selling positioning has not been defined clearly resulting in the segment attack by the competitors. The day’s inventory for the company is very high making the firm to raise much capital for the investments in the channel impacting the Hoosier Media Group Inc., growth in the long term (Hess, 2014).

• Discuss the primary external organization considerations.

Opportunities for Hoosier Media Group, Inc.

The company is experiencing the new customer base online platforms or channels, following the vast amount of investment that the company did in online platforms. Such investment has opened the new channels of sales for the company, and the company is capable of leveraging such opportunities through understanding their customers even better and meeting their best needs through the enormous data analytics (Qureshi, Aziz, and Mian, 2017). There has been an economic as the consumers have increased their spending following the recession year, and the preceding slow economic growth rate of the Media industry serves as an opportunity for the Hoosier Media Group to increase their share of the market by capturing the new customers (Hess, 2014).

The lower rate of inflation results in the market stability with credit being given at the lowest rate of interest to the Hoosier Media Group Inc., customers. The new consumer behavior trends are important in the opening up of the new markets for the Hoosier as the organization get to build new streams of revenues and diversifying into new categories of products (Qureshi, Aziz, and Mian, 2017). The development of the market will result in the dilution of the advantage of the competitors enabling the Hoosier Media Inc., to become more competitive compared to some of the competitors (Brooks, Heffner, and Henderson, 2014).

• Identify the major issues and/or opportunities the company faces based on your analysis.

Threats of Hoosier Media Group Inc.,

The local distributors have been growing in strengths posing the significant threats in the market as competitors are high pay margins to the distributors. The competitors are developing new technologies that are disrupting the market and posing risks in the future. Shortage of skilled workforce in the global markets poses risks to steady profit growth (Qureshi, Aziz, and Mian, 2017).

References

Brooks, G., Heffner, A., & Henderson, D. (2014). A SWOT analysis of competitive knowledge from social media for a small start-up business. The Review of Business Information Systems (Online), 18(1), 23.

Hess, T. (2014). What is a media company? A reconceptualization for the online world. International Journal on Media Management, 16(1), 3-8.

Nason, R. S., & Wiklund, J. (2018). An assessment of resource-based theorizing on firm growth and suggestions for the future. Journal of Management, 44(1), 32-60.

Qureshi, M. S., Aziz, N., & Mian, S. A. (2017). How marketing capabilities shape entrepreneurial firm’s performance? Evidence from new technology-based firms in turkey. Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research, 7(1), 15.