Swot whole with almost every household having at

SWOT Analysis on Microsoft Corporation Strenghts Microsoft has several strengths, combined with the latest upheaval in its market strength, image and overall performance, it implies that Microsoft has a steady and dominant future carved out for itself. Getting to the main strengths of Microsoft A Massive Global InfluenceMicrosoft as a company has been producing exceptional products and in both software and hardware category for the past 40 years or more this has led to the establishment of the Microsoft Brand due to this the companies’ presence is found everywhere in today’s whole with almost every household having at least 1 or more Microsoft services in their daily live, giving them a huge customer base of and an advertisement platform of existing customers.

If you look at their latest offering in the Operating System category windows 10 which was given out for free and widely promoted on their older gen systems has already garnered more than 500 million installs and is by default it is integrated with all their flagship products such as OneNote, Windows Store, Cortana and many more. Significant credit leewayThe company ranks 3rd in the world in terms of market value at a staggering U. S Dollars 507. 5 million. This just reflects as to how much the company can flex it hands when it comes to spending, enabling them to adopt much more aggressive and eye-catching marketing strategies all the while investing more time and money into developing great products. A Sprawling Distribution NetworkMaintaining an extensive distribution and marketing network which enables it to achieve optimal operational performance.

Microsoft does its marketing and distribution of its products through three major channels namely OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturer); Distributors and Resellers; and online (Through its own virtual store and E-commerce sites)The Range of Products Offered Microsoft offerings range from software, services to hardware solutions across all kinds of different customer types, enabling it to enjoy a dominant position in the market. The main source of revenue for Microsoft is primarily developing, manufacturing licensing with supporting software/services across a wide variety of devices all the while also providing a consulting and product and solution support service, training certifying computer system integrators and developers. Weaknesses Fierce Competition While this would be further analysed under the topic of ‘ Threats’, it makes sense to mention that in the present timeline Microsoft has plenty of competitors in the tech industry. Namely Apple, Google and AWS (Amazon Web Services) which provide an alternative to Microsoft products which are at times even better than Microsoft’s own offerings. Vulnerability to CybercrimeA lot of Microsoft’s products are exposed to cybercrime. Let’s take an example the windows operating system remains a target of numerous cyberattack globally.

This in turn acts as a weakness for Microsoft by limiting the attraction of their products due to security risks pushing people towards other alternatives such as the MAC OS. The lack of presence in the hardware categoryMost of Microsoft’s main rivals dominate the hardware scene Apple has the iPhone and iMac line-up google has it’s Android operating system combined with the Pixel phones. All these products above have a ridiculously high market share which dominate the market. While Microsoft does seem to be working on the hardware aspects of its business with its surface line-up but is far from dominating the hardware scene. Regarding the current situation to overcome this shortfall Microsoft needs to improve its product features and double down on its hardware development efforts to ensure competitiveness in the industry.

Not able to curb piracy of their software. The company as it is now having to battle severely with piracy and counterfeit software that affect it’s earning greatly. Mainly in developing countries such as India, China etc.

They have tried to deer pirates with various ways such s introducing a kill switch or offering a free upgrade to windows 10 to he mases but it still isn’t enough to curb the issue of piracyLegal Hurdles Microsoft is a respondent in various unresolved cases against it. Its is mixed up in various legal proceedings against t it in relation to product design, manufacturing process employment liabilities and other proceedings relating to contracts, thus effectively stifling growth and innovation all the while dragging the company’s image down.  Opportunities As on of the big three tech company Microsoft doesn’t really have any opportunities that the others don’t but their aforesaid strengths should allow them to get back into action if they wee to focus in the right areas using the right strategies. Broadening of Business Model (diversification)Microsoft mainly relies on the popularity of its windows Operating System, Regarding this the company has a lot of opportunities to grow its portfolio based on its diversification. For example, the company can diversify through new business ventures mergers or acquisitions. In this way the company can take advantage of other avenues for business growthExploiting the power of their customer base.

Microsoft as a company and services widely used by people a to certain extent accepted by customers everywhere, so if they can change things up a little and make their pricing models more dynamic it would not be impossible for them to change the customer from spending every few years to spending more actively turning them into more active spenders thus in turn increasing the company’s revenues by a significant margin. Utilizing their current strengths effectivelyBeing the third company when it comes to market value Microsoft seems to have a lot of cash on hand, they have a phenomenal opportunity to develop one of the best operating system in the world with their immense pool of talented programmers and large amount of funds readily available this should be one the priorities of the company. Innovating computer hardware productsThis a major opportunity for Microsoft to innovate new and fresh computer hardware products that set a benchmark to compete with the best of the best that competitors like Apple have to offer, right now the companies hardware offerings are not that strong in terms of competitiveness, but an aggressive marketing strategy and further innovation could potentially prove to be a great opportunity for Microsoft.

Strategic Alliances The company is in the position where it can enter into a new partnership for the development of innovative and technologically advanced product, such a partnership would allow Microsoft to gain a higher market share than the norm or expected. For example, the newly announced partnership between Microsoft and Amazon concerning the combining of their virtual assistants namely Cortana and Alexa seem like a move in the right direction as it has the capabilities to undercut the dominance of Google and Apple in the connected devices field.