Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer
Headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts, Formlabs manufactures 3D printers used to print everything from prototypes and models to jewelry, dental, and sculpture molds. As Formlabs prepares to ship its latest model, the Form 2, Head of Customer Development and Services Luke Winston wonders which strategy will double sales. Should he focus on direct sales or add more channel partners?
Authors :: Frank V. Cespedes, Olivia Hull, Amram Migdal
Swot Analysis of "Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer" written by Frank V. Cespedes, Olivia Hull, Amram Migdal includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Formlabs 3d facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurial management, Growth strategy, Product development, Sales, Technology and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, geopolitical disruptions,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Formlabs 3d, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Formlabs 3d 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 Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Formlabs 3d
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field.
4. Making a Innovation & Entrepreneurship topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Formlabs 3d
Strengths Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Formlabs 3d in Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Formlabs 3d 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Formlabs 3d 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 Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Formlabs 3d
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Formlabs 3d does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Formlabs 3d 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 Formlabs 3d is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Formlabs 3d is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Formlabs 3d in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Formlabs 3d is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Formlabs 3d has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Formlabs 3d 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Formlabs 3d 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 Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Formlabs 3d has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Formlabs 3d to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Formlabs 3d 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 Formlabs 3d in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Formlabs 3d, firm in the HBR case study Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Frank V. Cespedes, Olivia Hull, Amram Migdal suggests that, Formlabs 3d 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, Formlabs 3d 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
– Formlabs 3d 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer 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 Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Formlabs 3d is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer 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 Formlabs 3d 's lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Formlabs 3d 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 - Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Formlabs 3d 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer, in the dynamic environment Formlabs 3d has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Formlabs 3d has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Formlabs 3d products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Formlabs 3d needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer | 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 Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer are -
Manufacturing automation
– Formlabs 3d can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Formlabs 3d to increase its market reach. Formlabs 3d 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 Formlabs 3d in the consumer business. Now Formlabs 3d 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, Formlabs 3d 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Formlabs 3d 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 Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Formlabs 3d to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Formlabs 3d 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 Formlabs 3d to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Formlabs 3d 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Formlabs 3d can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Formlabs 3d 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. Formlabs 3d 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Formlabs 3d in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Formlabs 3d 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Formlabs 3d can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Formlabs 3d can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Formlabs 3d can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer, Formlabs 3d may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Innovation & Entrepreneurship .
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. Formlabs 3d needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Formlabs 3d.
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. Formlabs 3d 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Formlabs 3d in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Environmental challenges
– Formlabs 3d 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. Formlabs 3d can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Formlabs 3d has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Formlabs 3d needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Formlabs 3d is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Formlabs 3d with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Formlabs 3d 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 Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer .
Consumer confidence and its impact on Formlabs 3d 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer 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 Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer 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 Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer 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 Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer 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 Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer 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 Formlabs 3d needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
