E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Technology & Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B)
DuPont must decide whether to launch a new non-GM (genetically modified) soybean that is tolerant to chemical sprays. In the face of rapid introductions of GM products by competitors, DuPont faces the challenge of ensuring the identity preservation of its new product through the agricultural distribution network. DuPont must choose the best business model to manage this large and unwieldy value chain.
Swot Analysis of "E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B)" written by Jonathan West, Christian G. Kasper includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Dupont Gm facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Technology and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dupont Gm, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dupont Gm 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 E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dupont Gm
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Technology & Operations field.
4. Making a Technology & Operations topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Dupont Gm
Strengths E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Dupont Gm in E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Dupont Gm 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.
Analytics focus
– Dupont Gm is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Jonathan West, Christian G. Kasper can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Learning organization
- Dupont Gm 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 Dupont Gm is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Dupont Gm is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Dupont Gm has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Dupont Gm in the sector have low bargaining power. E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Dupont Gm to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Technology & Operations segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Dupont Gm digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Dupont Gm 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Dupont Gm are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Dupont Gm is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) 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.
Organizational Resilience of Dupont Gm
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Dupont Gm does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Dupont Gm has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Dupont Gm 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Dupont Gm is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) are -
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Dupont Gm 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Dupont Gm has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Dupont Gm is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Dupont Gm has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Dupont Gm 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Dupont Gm has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B), in the dynamic environment Dupont Gm has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Dupont Gm has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Dupont Gm, firm in the HBR case study E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B), it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Technology & Operations strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Dupont Gm has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Jonathan West, Christian G. Kasper suggests that, Dupont Gm is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Opportunities E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) | 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 E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Dupont Gm 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Dupont Gm 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Technology & Operations industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Dupont Gm can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Dupont Gm in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Technology & Operations segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Dupont Gm 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Technology & Operations industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Dupont Gm 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. Dupont Gm 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Dupont Gm 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Dupont Gm can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Dupont Gm is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Dupont Gm can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Dupont Gm operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Technology & Operations sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Dupont Gm can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Dupont Gm has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Dupont Gm to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) case study. Dupont Gm can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Dupont Gm can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Technology & Operations segment.
Threats E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Dupont Gm with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Dupont Gm.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Dupont Gm demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Dupont Gm has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Technology & Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Dupont Gm needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Technology & Operations 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.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Dupont Gm will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
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 Dupont Gm in the Technology & Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Dupont Gm in the Technology & Operations industry. The Technology & Operations 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Dupont Gm is facing in Technology & Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Technology & Operations field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Dupont Gm can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Dupont Gm business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B), Dupont Gm may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Technology & Operations .
Regulatory challenges
– Dupont Gm 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 Technology & Operations industry regulations.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Dupont Gm can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) 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 E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) 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 E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) 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 E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) 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 E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (B) 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 Dupont Gm needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
