Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS
Dr. Nicholas Burns, a sole practitioner dentist in a small town in Ontario, is considering the purchase of a new dental laser which allows dentists to perform certain dental treatments without anesthesia. He wondered if the benefits of the new dental laser would justify the expenditure. Dr. Burns knew he should consider whether the technological advantage offered by the new dental laser would improve his office's profitability and the possibility that a different technology may become the standard in the industry.
Swot Analysis of "Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS" written by John S. Haywood-Farmer, Eleni Mitsis includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Dental Burns facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial management, Operations management, Technology and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dental Burns, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dental Burns operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dental Burns
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Organizational Development field.
4. Making a Organizational Development topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Dental Burns
Strengths Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Dental Burns in Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Dental Burns is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Dental Burns in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Dental Burns has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
High brand equity
– Dental Burns has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Dental Burns to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Dental Burns has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Learning organization
- Dental Burns is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Dental Burns is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Dental Burns is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Dental Burns has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Dental Burns has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Organizational Resilience of Dental Burns
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Dental Burns does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Dental Burns in the sector have low bargaining power. Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Dental Burns to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Dental Burns has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Organizational Development segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Dental Burns digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Dental Burns has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Diverse revenue streams
– Dental Burns is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Weaknesses Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Dental Burns is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Dental Burns, firm in the HBR case study Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Dental Burns has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS, is just above the industry average. Dental Burns needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Dental Burns supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Dental Burns vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Dental Burns 's lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Dental Burns has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Dental Burns even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Dental Burns needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Lack of clear differentiation of Dental Burns products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Dental Burns needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS, it seems that the employees of Dental Burns don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS HBR case study mentions - Dental Burns takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Opportunities Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Dental Burns to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Dental Burns to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Dental Burns is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Dental Burns in the consumer business. Now Dental Burns can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Dental Burns can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Dental Burns can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Dental Burns can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Organizational Development industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Dental Burns can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Dental Burns can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Dental Burns to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Dental Burns to increase its market reach. Dental Burns will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Loyalty marketing
– Dental Burns has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Dental Burns can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Dental Burns to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Developing new processes and practices
– Dental Burns can develop new processes and procedures in Organizational Development industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Threats Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS are -
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Dental Burns in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Dental Burns business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Dental Burns needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Dental Burns can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Dental Burns has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Dental Burns needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Organizational Development sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Dental Burns needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Dental Burns can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS .
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Dental Burns.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS, Dental Burns may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Organizational Development .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Dental Burns high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Dental Burns is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Dental Burns in the Organizational Development industry. The Organizational Development industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Regulatory challenges
– Dental Burns needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Organizational Development industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Dr. Nicholas Burns, DDS is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Dental Burns needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.