3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market
This case study focuses on 3D Robotics, a drone company with UAV platforms. The case study focuses on what 3DR should pursue at its critical inflection point within its history. The case study highlights what is unique about 3DR, particularly when compared to a more traditional non-open, non-Maker company.
Swot Analysis of "3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market" written by Toby Stuart, Chris Anderson includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that 3dr Drone facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
there is backlash against globalization, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the 3dr Drone, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which 3dr Drone 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 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of 3dr Drone
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 3dr Drone
Strengths 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of 3dr Drone in 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– 3dr Drone 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 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled 3dr Drone to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped 3dr Drone to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that 3dr Drone 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.
Training and development
– 3dr Drone has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market 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)
– 3dr Drone 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 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- 3dr Drone 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 3dr Drone is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– 3dr Drone 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 Toby Stuart, Chris Anderson 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of 3dr Drone in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of 3dr Drone in the sector have low bargaining power. 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps 3dr Drone to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– 3dr Drone is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the 3dr Drone 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
– 3dr Drone is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Weaknesses 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market are -
Lack of clear differentiation of 3dr Drone products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, 3dr Drone needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at 3dr Drone 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.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of 3dr Drone supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left 3dr Drone vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Toby Stuart, Chris Anderson suggests that, 3dr Drone 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market 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 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as 3dr Drone is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market 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 3dr Drone 's lucrative customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, 3dr Drone 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, 3dr Drone has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. 3dr Drone even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
3dr Drone 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, 3dr Drone is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market, it seems that the employees of 3dr Drone 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.
Opportunities 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market | 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 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market are -
Developing new processes and practices
– 3dr Drone can develop new processes and procedures in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects 3dr Drone can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for 3dr Drone 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 3dr Drone to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at 3dr Drone 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, 3dr Drone 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.
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. 3dr Drone 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. 3dr Drone 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, 3dr Drone can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 3dr Drone 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, 3dr Drone can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that 3dr Drone operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
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. 3dr Drone can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– 3dr Drone can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market 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, 3dr Drone is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– 3dr Drone 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 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help 3dr Drone to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents 3dr Drone 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– 3dr Drone 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– 3dr Drone 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market, 3dr Drone 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 .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for 3dr Drone 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, 3dr Drone 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 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market .
Regulatory challenges
– 3dr Drone 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.
Environmental challenges
– 3dr Drone 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. 3dr Drone can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
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. 3dr Drone 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.
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 3dr Drone business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. 3dr Drone needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market 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 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market 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 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market 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 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market 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 3D Robotics: Disrupting the Drone Market 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 3dr Drone needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
