Millions of people all over the globe cannot imagine their lives without television nowadays, and businesses cannot leave this tendency unattended. However, functioning within this intensely competitive environment demands expert knowledge about strategic management. To stay the course and achieve success, a company should concentrate on numerous issues pertaining to the individual mission elaboration, target audience, and competitive setting.
This paper scrutinizes DISH Network, a direct-transmission satellite service company, and its market activity. In order to understand how the organization carries on its business and surmounts challenges, its background and three main aspects concerning the performance, namely the DISH Network’s mission, its primary stakeholders, and the position in the television market, are examined. The interaction with the market environment and future development possibilities are viewed. Finally, the relationships between the company and its clients are described.
Background
DISH Network’s history began in 1980 in Meridian, Colorado, when the company’s predecessor, EchoStar, was founded by Charlie Ergen, Candy Ergen, and Jim Defranco (DISH Network, n.d.). In the course of time, EchoStar managed to merge several companies. It put up its own satellite, EchoStar I, in 1995. In 2008, as a result of reorganizing the enterprise structure, DISH Network started its activities independently.
Still, EchoStar remains the most significant technology business partner. At the present stage of development, DISH Network focuses on satellite television, satellite access to the Internet, audio programming, and interactive TV services to a wide range of customers and provides these services to 14 million users (DISH Network, n.d.). Having recruited approximately 18 000 employees, the firm earned about $15 billion last year, and its current value is estimated to be $23.1 billion (Forbes, 2016). In future, the company plans to develop and improve the Internet, video, and phone services.
DISH Network Characteristics
Mission
The company laconically identifies its mission: “to be the very best at delivering video anywhere, anytime” (DISH Network, n.d., para. 1). However, this simply formulated idea implies hard work in many spheres. DISH Network concentrates on the highest-quality information and chooses the contents that are likely to fetch the audience. Technical aspects have become especially important for the company since there were several blackouts.
The biggest ones occurred this year in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and Richmond, Virginia. In those circumstances, DISH Network underscores that customers are the greatest value: for instance, the clients who suffered from the interruption of transmission were provided with free antennas (Schwindt, 2016). Besides, the company has a slogan that also reflects the specific vision of the company: “Better TV for all” (DISH Network, n.d., para.8). In other words, customers take center stage for DISH Network, and the services quality is the instrument to demonstrate it.
The Organization’s Position and Niche
The American pay TV market is one of the most fiercely competitive and mature spheres: approximately 95 % of all households have TV facilities, and more than 85% of them use pay TV services on a regular basis (Trefis Team, 2016). However, there have been some considerable changes recently. This sphere is characterized by stagnation tendencies in relation to home television: pay TV providers continue to lose clients because people stop using traditional forms of TV and switch to online streaming services.
Despite these problems, some companies, such as Comcast, DISH Network and DirecTV, actively work in the domain to maintain their share of the market (Trefis Team, 2016). As for DISH, this company is considered to have more advantages in comparison with the named organizations: its compound annual growth rate is expected to be higher than that of Comcast or DirecTV.
Stakeholders
There is little doubt that people love watching TV. The Internet age that brought social networks, online games, chats, and other kinds of entertainment did not destroy TV industry, although its form changed profoundly because tablets and many other gadgets became popular. In the USA, an average person spends five hours and four minutes per day watching different programs, and the bulk of that, four and a half hours, is live TV (Koblin, 2016). Thus, it is possible to consider all American population the primary stakeholders.
As for business partners, DISH Network cooperates with EchoStar, Ciel Satellite Group, Tribune Broadcasting Co., and other organizations in the sphere of technologies. In terms of financing and investments, DISH Network collaborates with Eagle Capital Management, L.L.C., Dodge & Cox Inc., and so on (Morningstar, 2016).
The Organization and Environment Interaction
The pay TV industry is the most important circuit of action for DISH Network. According to the statistics, the company’s cable and satellite TV market share grew from 13.5% in 2008 to 14.1% in 2015 (Dish Network’s pay TV market share, n.d.). However, the prognoses concerning the future development of the company are not very optimistic. It is often emphasized that the organization manages to survive since it raises prices; as a result, DISH is much more reliant on its TV client base than the majority of other pay TV providers that develop extra services and attract customers by the variety of opportunities (Schwindt, 2016).
In 2016, market share rates are expected to decline, and this indicator will add up to 12.9% in 2022 (Dish Network’s pay TV market share, n.d.). Morningstar (2016) examines DISH Network’s and its rivals’ market capitalization rates and arrives at the conclusion that DISH holds a middle position: Comcast Corp., Charter Communications Inc., Netflix Inc., and Liberty Global Group are listed as the companies with higher rates. At the same time, there are numerous companies with lower indexes: LiLAC Group, Cogeso Inc., and others.
One can say that the organization’s mission is in alignment with the volatile environment partially. While the competitors provide more and more new services, DISH adapts relatively slowly. On the other hand, the quality of services is more or less good.
The Organization and Stakeholders’ Needs
Taking into account the facts above, it is possible to state that primary stakeholders’ needs are not fully satisfied. People hardly like that the prices are higher nowadays; it probably becomes one of the reasons they stop using the company’s services. Moreover, blackouts occur from time to time. People also need to use portable devices, and corresponding TV services are necessary.
As for the business partners, their needs sometimes differ from those of DISH. For instance, the disagreement between DISH Network and Tribune Broadcasting Co. led to one of the blackouts (Schwindt, 2016).
Conclusion
To sum it up, the present-day pay TV market is notable for a significant level of competition. In this context, DISH Network remains one of the leaders in this sphere. While its mission is connected with the importance of high-quality services, the current state of affairs gives ground to doubt whether customers are the primary value: there are some problems to solve. If DISH Network does not improve the situation, the future is likely to bring customer disloyalty and loss of income.
References
DISH Network. Our mission. (n.d.). Web.
Dish Network’s pay TV market share in the United States from 2008 to 2022. (n.d.). Web.
Forbes. (2016). #517 DISH Network. Web.
Koblin, J. (2016). How much do we love TV? Let us count the ways. The New York Times. Web.
Morningstar. (2016). Dish Network Corp. Web.
Schwindt, O. (2016). Why Dish Network is an unsung hero: TV blackouts are bad, but price hikes are worse. International Business Times. Web.
Trefis Team. (2016). Where do Comcast and Dish stand in the pay TV market?Forbes. Web.