Report on Analysis of Charter Communications' Business Strategy

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Charter Communications, a prominent US cable and broadband provider operating under the Spectrum brand. The report begins with an executive summary and table of contents, followed by an introduction to the company and a brief overview of the competitive telecom market, highlighting the rivalry between Charter and Comcast. The analysis then delves into the external environment, emphasizing technological threats from over-the-top (OTT) video services like Netflix and YouTube, as well as the competitive global landscape. An internal environment analysis assesses the company's strengths, such as its customer base and network infrastructure, and weaknesses, including customer dissatisfaction and employee attrition. A SWOT analysis is presented, identifying the company's strengths (high customer base, revenue, and fixed assets), weaknesses (customer satisfaction, organic growth rate, and acquisition costs), opportunities (product mix changes and mergers), and threats (OTT services and price wars). The report concludes that Charter Communications possesses considerable strengths and opportunities for future growth, despite the volatile external environment. References are provided to support the analysis.

Running Head: ANALYSIS OF CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS
Analysis of Charter Communications
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ANALYSIS OF CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS
Executive Summary
This paper seeks to analyze the internal and external environment of Chartered Communication,
a large US company dealing in cables and broadband. The paper also evaluates the various
strengths and weaknesses of the Company and the threats it face from the market it operates in.
The paper finally concludes that the Company can be expected to perform well provided it
exploits the opportunities.

2ANALYSIS OF CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Overview of Telecom market..........................................................................................................4
External Environment and Industry Analysis..................................................................................4
Internal Environment Analysis........................................................................................................4
SWOT Analysis...............................................................................................................................5
Strength........................................................................................................................................5
Weakness.....................................................................................................................................5
Opportunity..................................................................................................................................5
Threat...........................................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7

3ANALYSIS OF CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS
Introduction
Charter Communication is the second largest cable provider of United States. It is better
known by its brand name Spectrum. The Company was established in 1993 by Barry Babcock,
Jerald Kent and Howard Wood in Missouri (Communications, 2018). The company was a part of
Fortune 500 Company and in 2018, it ranked 74 in the list (Communications, 2018).
Brief Industry Overview: Overview of Telecom market
I found the telecom market in United States of America to be very competitive. Charter
Communication is the second largest cable provider where the first place is held by Comcast.
The reason I found the industry to be highly competitive as the margin between Comcast and
Spectrum is very narrow. Currently Spectrum caters over 26 million customers in 41 states
(Communications, 2018).
External Environment and Industry Analysis
One of the major external threat faced by the Company is in the nature of a technological
threat (Thussu, 2018). For instance, I watch Netflix more than cable TV. The over the top video
service providers like Netflix or You tube is taking the business away from the traditional cable
providers. On top of that, globally the industry is very much competitive. It is similar in USA as
well. In December 2013, the total number of customers were over 54.4 million, out of which
almost 47% is catered by Spectrum (Thussu, 2018).

4ANALYSIS OF CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS
Internal Environment Analysis
In my opinion, the company has mixed internal health. The customer base and wide
networking is one of its key area of focus. Particularly I feel that the way the company is
handling its key assets that is both the customers and cable line infrastructure is really
commendable. The assets are grown by inorganic manner. By swift merger and acquisition, the
company is increasing its base. Although it does not guarantee customer satisfaction. In my
opinion, this industry has very high customer dissatisfaction rate as well as employee attrition
rate. These are areas of concern for the company.
SWOT Analysis
Strength
The major strength of the company is high customer base. The revenue generated is quite
high from the customers (Phadermrod, Crowder & Wills, 2016). The revenue is key for the
inorganic growth of the company, over the years the revenue is increasing along with the profit
at a very encouraging rate. The fixed assets are cable networks and it is another strength
(Phadermrod, Crowder & Wills, 2016).
Weakness
The customer satisfaction is a key concern for the company (Brooks, Heffner &
Henderson, 2014). In my opinion, it is problem for all the companies working in the industry.
The growth rate is slow for organic growth and merger and acquisition is the best possible way
to expand which is a costly affair (Brooks, Heffner & Henderson, 2014).

5ANALYSIS OF CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS
Opportunity
Changing the product mix is an opportunity (Phadermrod, Crowder & Wills, 2016). They
are eying for over the top network services like iTunes, Netflix or YouTube. Merger and
Acquisition can be their opportunity as well for in organic growth.
Threat
Netflix or YouTube are their biggest threats. They are capturing the market from all the
cable companies. I feel that price war is another big threat to the companies (Phadermrod,
Crowder & Wills, 2016).
Conclusion
Based on above discussion, I can conclude that the external environment for Charter
Communication Inc. is volatile. However, the company has good number of strength and
opportunities to grow in future.

6ANALYSIS OF CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS
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.
Communications, C. (2018). Internet, Cable TV, and Phone Service | Spectrum. Spectrum.com.
Phadermrod, B., Crowder, R. M., & Wills, G. B. (2016). Importance-performance analysis based
SWOT analysis. International Journal of Information Management.
Thussu, D. K. (2018). International communication: Continuity and change. Bloomsbury
Publishing.