Lawrence Coburn and Pankaj Prasad, co-founders of the event solution startup DoubleDutch, have to make a significant decision about their young company's sales function. DoubleDutch's key product was a mobile application (app) and event management platform that customers could use to better engage and connect with their event participants (e.g. attendees at a conference, employees at a quarterly sales meeting), and also to obtain detailed information from these participants to deliver a better future experience, understand how the event was received, and receive large amounts of valuable data. The company was growing quickly and rapidly adding new customers, but Coburn and Prasad wanted to make sure that in the drive to add new customers, existing clients whose contracts were expiring were not "slipping through the cracks" when it came time to renew. But who within the company should be responsible for renewals? Sales? The customer success team that helped customers develop and deploy the product? Or an entirely new team dedicated solely to renewals?
Swot Analysis of "DoubleDutch" written by Frank V. Cespedes, Matthew Preble includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Coburn Doubledutch facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in DoubleDutch case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing, Sales, Strategy execution, Technology and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the DoubleDutch casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in DoubleDutch case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Coburn Doubledutch, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Coburn Doubledutch 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 DoubleDutch can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in DoubleDutch case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Coburn Doubledutch
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 Coburn Doubledutch
Strengths DoubleDutch | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Coburn Doubledutch in DoubleDutch Harvard Business Review case study are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the DoubleDutch 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Coburn Doubledutch is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Coburn Doubledutch has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in DoubleDutch 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Coburn Doubledutch 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 DoubleDutch - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Coburn Doubledutch is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the DoubleDutch are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Organizational Resilience of Coburn Doubledutch
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Coburn Doubledutch does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Coburn Doubledutch 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 Coburn Doubledutch is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in DoubleDutch Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– DoubleDutch firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Coburn Doubledutch to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Coburn Doubledutch to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Coburn Doubledutch 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 Coburn Doubledutch in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Coburn Doubledutch is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in DoubleDutch Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Analytics focus
– Coburn Doubledutch 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 Frank V. Cespedes, Matthew Preble 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Coburn Doubledutch 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.
Weaknesses DoubleDutch | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of DoubleDutch are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Coburn Doubledutch 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Frank V. Cespedes, Matthew Preble suggests that, Coburn Doubledutch 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study DoubleDutch, 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Coburn Doubledutch 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Coburn Doubledutch is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study DoubleDutch can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Coburn Doubledutch 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 - DoubleDutch 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, Coburn Doubledutch 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study DoubleDutch, it seems that the employees of Coburn Doubledutch 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the DoubleDutch HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Coburn Doubledutch has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As DoubleDutch HBR case study mentions - Coburn Doubledutch 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Coburn Doubledutch 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.
Opportunities DoubleDutch | 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 DoubleDutch are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Coburn Doubledutch 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Coburn Doubledutch 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 Coburn Doubledutch to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Coburn Doubledutch 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 DoubleDutch - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Coburn Doubledutch to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Coburn Doubledutch in the consumer business. Now Coburn Doubledutch can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Manufacturing automation
– Coburn Doubledutch 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Coburn Doubledutch 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Coburn Doubledutch to increase its market reach. Coburn Doubledutch 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.
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 Coburn Doubledutch 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Coburn Doubledutch is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. DoubleDutch 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Coburn Doubledutch 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Coburn Doubledutch can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Coburn Doubledutch operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Coburn Doubledutch 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 Coburn Doubledutch can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats DoubleDutch External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study DoubleDutch are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Coburn Doubledutch 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Coburn Doubledutch 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 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
– Coburn Doubledutch 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Coburn Doubledutch with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Coburn Doubledutch business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Coburn Doubledutch has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Coburn Doubledutch 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Coburn Doubledutch 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry regulations.
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. Coburn Doubledutch needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Coburn Doubledutch can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Coburn Doubledutch
– 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 Coburn Doubledutch.
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 Coburn Doubledutch in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Coburn Doubledutch 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. Coburn Doubledutch can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of DoubleDutch 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 DoubleDutch 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 DoubleDutch 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 DoubleDutch 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 DoubleDutch 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 Coburn Doubledutch needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
