Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution
April 2013, Leuven (Belgium). Sitting behind his desk at the Headquarters of Materialise, the company he founded and still led as CEO, Wilfried Vancraen reminisced about the exciting last few years. It had taken 20 years to lead the company from pioneer in 3D printing technology to the ultimate industry accolade, the receipt in 2011 of the RTAM Industry Achievement Award for the extensive contributions the firm had made to additive manufacturing. Revenues reached the $90 million mark in 2013, with 1,000+ employees. The company was broadly diversified, catering to different markets in both B2B and B2C sectors and was a clear market leader in applications such as software for additive manufacturing and biomedical engineering, as well as in biomedical 3D printing activities. But the competitive landscape was evolving quickly. Many new service bureaus were opening up. Hype about 3D printing was growing in the media. The barriers to entry (technological and financial) were, but becoming steeper in machine and material manufacturing. Vertical integration was starting to appear with big 3D printing machine manufacturers starting to acquire service providers, software developers and material manufacturers. It was a bit early to judge the effectiveness and long-term effects of this emerging trend. Further consolidation was clearly in sight. For Materialise, the options were numerous. It could become the consolidator, acquiring and merging into other players. But with its unique portfolio of competencies and activities, it could as easily become a seller in the process. It could also continue to grow independently. There was also the issue of whether it should seek further financing from the public in an IPO. Being an established prized player in the industry opened up many opportunities...
Swot Analysis of "Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution" written by Benoit Leleux, Mazen Zein includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that 3d Printing facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Manufacturing, Technology and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution casestudy better are - – increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the 3d Printing, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which 3d Printing 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 Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of 3d Printing
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of 3d Printing
Strengths Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of 3d Printing in Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– 3d Printing is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the 3d Printing 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution 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.
High brand equity
– 3d Printing has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled 3d Printing to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- 3d Printing 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 3d Printing is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that 3d Printing 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of 3d Printing in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– 3d Printing 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 Benoit Leleux, Mazen Zein 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– 3d Printing has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. 3d Printing 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.
Organizational Resilience of 3d Printing
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that 3d Printing does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– 3d Printing 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 Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– 3d Printing is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution HBR case study mentions - 3d Printing 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at 3d Printing 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, 3d Printing is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution 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 Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution 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 Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as 3d Printing is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of 3d Printing is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. 3d Printing needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help 3d Printing to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, 3d Printing has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution 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 3d Printing has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though 3d Printing 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 - Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution 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, 3d Printing 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Benoit Leleux, Mazen Zein suggests that, 3d Printing 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.
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 3d Printing supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left 3d Printing vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Opportunities Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution | 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 Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for 3d Printing 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.
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. 3d Printing can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, 3d Printing is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at 3d Printing 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 Leadership & Managing People segment.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, 3d Printing 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, Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Developing new processes and practices
– 3d Printing can develop new processes and procedures in Leadership & Managing People 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 3d Printing can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, 3d Printing 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.
Loyalty marketing
– 3d Printing 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.
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 3d Printing 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– 3d Printing 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 Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help 3d Printing to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Leadership & Managing People industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. 3d Printing can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, 3d Printing can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that 3d Printing operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Threats Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution are -
Environmental challenges
– 3d Printing 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. 3d Printing can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. 3d Printing can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents 3d Printing with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on 3d Printing 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– 3d Printing 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.
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.
Increasing wage structure of 3d Printing
– 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 3d Printing.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for 3d Printing in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The Leadership & Managing People 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.
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. 3d Printing needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– 3d Printing has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, 3d Printing needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Leadership & Managing People 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– 3d Printing 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, 3d Printing 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 Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution .
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 3d Printing business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution 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 Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution 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 Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution 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 Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution 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 Materialise: Supporting the 3D Printing Revolution 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 3d Printing needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
