Swot Virgin Group

Virgin is a leading international investment group and one of the world's most recognised and respected brands. . It comprises of over 200 branded companies, employing approximately 50,000 people, in 29 countries and generated worldwide revenues in 2006 of £10 billion.

Conceived in 1970 by Sir Richard Branson, the Virgin Group has gone on to grow successful businesses in sectors ranging from mobile telephony, travel, financial services, leisure, music, holidays and health & wellness. Across its companies, Virgin employs approximately 50,000 people, in 34 countries and global branded revenues in 2011 were around $21 billion.

Strenghs

The first big strengh of Virgin is his founder Richard Branson a billionaire businessman with a taste for derring-do. Branson's first business was music: he began selling records by mail order in 1970, opened a shop in London in 1971, and in 1972 added a music studio. Virgin Records was launched a year later and soon became force in the music business, signing hot 1970s and '80s acts like the Sex Pistols, Phil Collins and Boy George. Rather than rest on his laurels, Branson branched out into a dizzying array of businesses bearing the Virgin name: Virgin Atlantic airways, Virgin Megastores (sellers of music and books), Virgin Mobile (phone service), along with cosmetics, car sales, health clubs, and many other concerns. Jovial, aggressive, and never shy about self-promotion, Branson put himself at the forefront of the Virgin publicity machine and made himself one of the best-known businessmen in Britain and the world. Branson also has made a hobby of record-breaking travel adventures: in 1986 he made the fastest-ever crossing of the Atlantic Ocean on his boat Virgin Atlantic Challenger II and a year later became the first to cross the Atlantic in a hot air balloon in his Virgin Atlantic Flyer. In the 1990s he also joined fellow-businessman Steve Fossett in several failed attempts to circle the globe non-stop in a hot air balloon. In 2006 he made headlines by pledging to devote all personal profits from his transporation companies for 10 years to developing renewable energy technologies.

The Virgin company owns a lot of subsidiaries which touch a lot of provinces like beverages, airlines, trains,video games, consumer electronics, financial services, films, internet, cable TV, music, radio, books, cosmetics, jewellery, houseware, retail, mobile phones, commercial spaceflight which give the company The net worth of £5.01 billion in 2008.

Moreover Virgin operates in many countries. For example, for the mobile subsidiary it operates in countries such as Canada, the US, United Kingdom, France, Australia, South Africa. These networks use different technologies, GSM in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, France, and CDMA in the U.S. and Canada, but the operator offers in all countries where it operates a prepaid (pay as you go) and different packages (pay monthly).

Moreover, one of the big strengh of the company is the company management and employees. Virgin Group companies are part of one big family rather than a hierarchy. They are empowered to run their own affairs, yet the companies actively help one another, and solutions to problems are often sourced from within the Group. In a sense they form a commonwealth, with shared ideas, values, interest and goals.

Thanks to the different subsidiaries, Virgin can touch different areas of expertise and this is why it has a kind of monopoly of the market. For example with the commercial spaceflight, it had openend a new tourism but has now many competitors.

Weaknesses :

With so many subsidiaries, Virgin has also, many competitors, for example in the US, with AMR corporation, one of the largest airline in the United States with a turnover of 39 billion of dollars, Southwest airline Co., the first cheap

airline company with a turnover of 135 million of dollars, Jetblue airways Corporation. And in UK with AOL as an internet compertitor, TESCO as a telephone competitor, in France the biggest competitor is teh Fnac.

This competition and the innovations of some them, put Virgin in a difficult situation especially with the crisis. Indeed the chain stores which employs 1,000 employees in France, will file for bankruptcy after years of financial difficulties in an area disturbed by competition on the Internet and digital.It followed years of hardship for chain stores,

The group has already chained store closings and workforce shrank by 200 employees over the past two years. New management, appointed in mid-2012, gave himself another two years "to restructure the chain by reducing the area outlets."

But in late December, Virgin took a symbolic step in undertaking to terminate the lease of the Champs-Elysées in Paris, which generates 20% of the turnover of the company. Union sources indicated that Virgin suffered particularly very important commercial rents in the city center.

The major reason of this crisis is the digital revolution and the breakthrough of e-commerce. The sector is facing a "digital shock" that established

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