Last time we discussed the SWOT analysis of one of the reputed telecommunication companies, Telstra. This time we will be going to know more about the SWOT analysis of CenturyLink.
CenturyLink is a telecommunication company that provides communications services in America and also serves international customers across North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. In this digital world, they provide a lot of services related to the IT field.
The thing which made this company achieve heights of success is its marketing efforts. For the last few years, the marketing strategy of every company is changing day by day. To know more about the changing scenario of marketing, join our Free MasterClass on Digital Marketing 101 by the CEO and founder of IIDE, Karan Shah.
Do you want to know how CenturyLink became successful? In this blog, we will get to learn about the SWOT analysis of CenturyLink. Before proceeding further let us just know more about CenturyLink as a company.
About CenturyLink,
CenturyLink now Lumen Technologies is an American company headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana. It provides internet, cable television and telephonic service to many areas of the United States. The original names for the company were the Oak Ridge Telephone Company, Central Telephone and Century Telephone. CenturyLink was established in 1930 in Oak Ridge, Louisiana.
Being a telecommunication company it offers a lot of services like they transmit data in words and over voice around the globe. It currently holds the 7th largest position in the telecommunication sector in the United States of America. Its vision is “To improve lives, strengthen business and connect communities by delivering advanced technologies and solutions with honest services”.
| CEO | Jeff Storey |
|---|---|
| Year Founded | 1930 |
| Origin | The United States |
| No. of Employees | 42,500 |
| Company Type | Public |
| Market Cap | $12.563 Billion (2021) |
| Annual Revenue | $20.712 Billion (2020) |
| Net Income/ Profit | $1.232 Billion (2020) |
Products & Services by CenturyLink
CenturyLink has been in the telecommunication industry from many years and offers:
- Network
- Private & Public Cloud Security
- Managed Services
- Big Data
- Multi-Cloud Management
- SaaS Apps
- Cloud Connect
- Internet, Phone & TV
Competitors of CenturyLink
- Equinix
- Cincinnati Bell
- Comcast
- Verizon
- Sprint
So as we got to know about the business of CenturyLink, now we will discuss the SWOT analysis of CenturyLink.
SWOT Analysis of CenturyLink
SWOT analysis examines the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that a firm faces. SWOT Analysis is a tried-and-true tool that enables a company like CenturyLink to compare its business and performance to that of its competitors.
It will give us a strategic analysis of its internal and external environment, which is crucial for understanding the SWOT Analysis of CenturyLink.
To better understand the SWOT analysis of CenturyLink, refer to the infographics below:
Below is an explicit guide to the SWOT analysis of CenturyLink.
Strengths of CenturyLink
CenturyLink has numerous strengths that help it to thrive in the marketplace. The strengths of CenturyLink are
- Wide Spread Distribution Network: CenturyLink has created a reliable distribution network over its 92 years of journey that allows it to reach the majority of its potential market through innovation.
- Reputed Telecom Industry In USA: CenturyLink has been in a position to hold on to the 3rd largest sector in their respective field in a developed country. It had been in this sector for quite a long time. CenturyLink does not own all of its data but it has acquired a good position in the market by strategically acquiring various companies.
- Strong Brand Portfolio: Over the years CenturyLink has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of CenturyLink just underlines the fact that the brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
- Superb Performance in New Markets: CenturyLink has built expertise at entering new markets and making them a success. The expansion has helped the organization to build a new revenue stream and diversify the economic cycle risk in the markets it operates in.
- Broad Product Line: Along with fixed-line internet and mobile telephony services, CenturyLink also offers CenturyLink Television and CenturyLink Sports services to its customers at reasonable prices.
Weaknesses of CenturyLink
Some of the weaknesses of CenturyLink which they can work upon are
- High Workforce Turnover Rate: As compared to other firms, the attrition rate of CenturyLink is relatively higher indicating the downward sign on the number of employees on Wikipedia, which is one of the biggest weaknesses of CenturyLink.
- Inefficient Financial Planning: By looking at the total assets and total equity one can simply tell that the company is not using its financial resources as it should.
- Revenue Instability: CenturyLink is facing a surge in decreasing annual revenue according to the 2020 financial report. However, the firm’s net income does not decrease which is a good indicator. Still, CenturyLink should look after its expenses to find out the fault.
- Frequent Name Change: CenturyLink has frequently changed its name year on year just like recently in 2020 it announced to change its name from CenturyLink to Lumen Technologies, such changes does not give the brand a clear picture in the market. Customers and investors start doubting the brand’s reliability.
- Reliance on the US Market for Major Revenue: As CenturyLink has its main headquarters in Monroe, Louisiana and it is providing the services more efficiently and gets major revenue from North & Latin parts of America. It is mostly dependent on the American market and hence lacks revenue from worldwide.
Opportunities for CenturyLink
Opportunities are potential areas of focus for a company to improve results, increase sales, and, ultimately, profit. Some of the opportunities for CenturyLink are
- Entry in Industrial Revolution: CenturyLink now Lumen Technologies is ready to bring revolution in the industrial sector by launching 4IR for a refined application delivery architecture, developed especially to address the complicated and data-intensive workloads of next-gen technology and businesses through cloud connectivity and big data analytics. Entering this space will give Lumen Technologies a complete change and an edge over its competitors.
- The Economy is Now Opening: Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for CenturyLink to capture new customers and increase its market share.
- Overseas Expansion: CenturyLink has its presence only in the United States and European states, by initiating to cover the whole of Asia continent and other parts of neighbouring countries, CenturyLink can gradually build up its stake in the market.
Threats to CenturyLink
Threats are environmental factors that can be harmful to a company’s growth. The following are some of SRF’s threats:
- Counterfeit Products: As CenturyLink also deals in selling mobile devices, imitation of counterfeit and low-quality products with CenturyLink data plans under the name of CenturyLink by fake product sellers can badly affect the name of CenturyLink.
- Local Players Playing Globally: CenturyLink sells its products and services in the market whereas players who offer communication services globally such as BT and Orange are ahead in the market capturing and customer acquisition if compared to CenturyLink.
- Criticism & Controversies: CenturyLink had faced several criticisms from the Federal Communications Commission such as being criticized for an internet outage, shutdowns and DNS hijacking due to poor security. Such mistakes by CenturyLink can badly affect the trust of customers in the brand.
- Competitor’s Growth: New technologies developed by its competitor Equinix which has covered most of the areas of the US or market disruptors by this competitor can turn out to be a serious threat to the industry concerning the long term future.
This ends our thorough SWOT analysis of CenturyLink. Let us conclude our learning below.
To Conclude
CenturyLink is a well-established telecommunications company with a good number of subsidiaries. In the SWOT Analysis of CenturyLink, we came to know about their strengths as well as their weak points. The company has a good brand profile as well as manages its consumer base quite effectively. But, suffers from some finance management issues that need to be addressed soon.
One of their greatest opportunities is that they are moving more and more towards the online mode. Which is a necessity in today’s scenario. To stand in the market and to expand globally one needs to focus more on the online part.
Hence, improving marketing skills is very paramount for digital marketing enthusiasts. If you are intrigued with the above piece of information in learning more and upskilling, check out the 3 Months Advanced Digital Marketing Course by IIDE to know more.
We hope this blog on the SWOT Analysis of CenturyLink has given you a good insight into the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
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