Case Study Description of Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy
In late 2014, Dropbox, the San Francisco-based pioneering cloud-based file storage service, was at an important stage of its growth. Its user base had expanded into hundreds of millions of users globally, and the company was expanding its service offerings to organizations. At the heart of this expansion was the ever-increasing acquisition of customers in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. As Dropbox targeted larger customers, it needed to carefully allocate its limited resources and continually evaluate the appropriate sales approach because of the highly competitive nature of the cloud storage market. The head of the Strategic Finance team needed to recommend how Dropbox could most effectively invest its limited resources. Should it invest in the self-serve, inbound approach, or opt for the more proactive and costlier outbound approach?
Swot Analysis of "Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy" written by Darren Meister, Matthew Wong includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Dropbox Storage facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Technology and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy casestudy better are - – increasing commodity prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dropbox Storage, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dropbox Storage 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 Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dropbox Storage
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Dropbox Storage
Strengths Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Dropbox Storage in Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Dropbox Storage in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Dropbox Storage 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Dropbox Storage is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Dropbox Storage 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 Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Dropbox Storage 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 Dropbox Storage in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Dropbox Storage 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 Dropbox Storage is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Dropbox Storage is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Dropbox Storage digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Dropbox Storage 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Dropbox Storage in the sector have low bargaining power. Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Dropbox Storage to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Dropbox Storage has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Dropbox Storage 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.
High brand equity
– Dropbox Storage has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Dropbox Storage to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Dropbox Storage 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 Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Dropbox Storage has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Dropbox Storage 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Dropbox Storage products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Dropbox Storage 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 Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy, it seems that the employees of Dropbox Storage 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Darren Meister, Matthew Wong suggests that, Dropbox Storage 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Dropbox Storage 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Dropbox Storage 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Dropbox Storage is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy 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 Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Dropbox Storage is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy HBR case study mentions - Dropbox Storage 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Strategy & Execution 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.
Opportunities Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy | 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 Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Dropbox Storage in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Strategy & Execution segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Dropbox Storage 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
– Dropbox Storage can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Dropbox Storage is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Dropbox Storage 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Dropbox Storage to increase its market reach. Dropbox Storage 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.
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 Dropbox Storage in the consumer business. Now Dropbox Storage 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, Dropbox Storage 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Dropbox Storage 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 Strategy & Execution segment.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Dropbox Storage has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Dropbox Storage to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Dropbox Storage can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Dropbox Storage operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Strategy & Execution industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Dropbox Storage 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. Dropbox Storage 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Dropbox Storage can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Strategy & Execution segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Threats Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Dropbox Storage 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 Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy .
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 Dropbox Storage business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Dropbox Storage 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 Strategy & Execution industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of Dropbox Storage
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Dropbox Storage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy, Dropbox Storage may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Strategy & Execution .
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Dropbox Storage 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Dropbox Storage in the Strategy & Execution industry. The Strategy & Execution 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.
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. Dropbox Storage 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Dropbox Storage is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Dropbox Storage in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Dropbox Storage has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Dropbox Storage needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Strategy & Execution 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Dropbox Storage 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 Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy 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 Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy 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 Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy 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 Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy 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 Dropbox: Go-To-Market Sales Strategy 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 Dropbox Storage needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
