Blue Dart Express (BLDT) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Air Courier
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Blue Dart Express (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Blue Dart Express is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Blue Dart Express
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Blue Dart Express can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Blue Dart Express, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Blue Dart Express 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 Blue Dart Express can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Blue Dart Express
2. Improving business portfolio management of Blue Dart Express
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Air Courier sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Blue Dart Express
Strengths of Blue Dart Express | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Blue Dart Express are -
Innovation driven organization
– Blue Dart Express is one of the most innovative firm in Air Courier sector.
High brand equity
– Blue Dart Express has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Blue Dart Express to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Air Courier industry
– Blue Dart Express has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Blue Dart Express to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Air Courier industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Blue Dart Express to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Blue Dart Express
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Blue Dart Express does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Air Courier industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Blue Dart Express digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Blue Dart Express has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Blue Dart Express has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Blue Dart Express staying ahead in the Air Courier industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Blue Dart Express has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Air Courier industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Blue Dart Express have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Blue Dart Express in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. Blue Dart Express has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Blue Dart Express to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Blue Dart Express in Air Courier industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Blue Dart Express has one of the best training and development program in Transportation industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Strong track record of project management in the Air Courier industry
– Blue Dart Express is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Blue Dart Express 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.
Weaknesses of Blue Dart Express | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Blue Dart Express are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Blue Dart Express 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.
Skills based hiring in Air Courier industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Blue Dart Express 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Air Courier industry, Blue Dart Express 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Blue Dart Express 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Air Courier industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in India, Blue Dart Express 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 Air Courier 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 Blue Dart Express supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Blue Dart Express is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Blue Dart Express vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of India, Blue Dart Express needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Blue Dart Express is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Blue Dart Express to provide better information regarding Air Courier products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Blue Dart Express, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Air Courier industry. 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Blue Dart Express is one of the leading players in the Air Courier industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Air Courier industry in last five years.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Blue Dart Express has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Air Courier industry over the last five years. Blue Dart Express 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.
Blue Dart Express Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Blue Dart Express are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Blue Dart Express 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Blue Dart Express 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 Blue Dart Express 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 Blue Dart Express to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Blue Dart Express is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Blue Dart Express can utilize new technology in the field of Air Courier industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Blue Dart Express can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Blue Dart Express operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Air Courier sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Blue Dart Express has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Air Courier industry. This can help Blue Dart Express to build a more holistic ecosystem for Blue Dart Express products in the Air Courier industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Blue Dart Express in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Air Courier industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Blue Dart Express to increase its market reach. Blue Dart Express 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Blue Dart Express can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Air Courier industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Blue Dart Express can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Blue Dart Express has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Air Courier sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Blue Dart Express to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Blue Dart Express to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Blue Dart Express 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
– Blue Dart Express 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.
Threats Blue Dart Express External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Blue Dart Express are -
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. Blue Dart Express 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 Blue Dart Express in Air Courier industry. The Air Courier 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. Blue Dart Express needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Air Courier industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Blue Dart Express may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Air Courier sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Blue Dart Express is facing in Air Courier sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Blue Dart Express.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Blue Dart Express 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.
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 Blue Dart Express business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Blue Dart Express 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 Air Courier industry and other sectors.
Environmental challenges
– Blue Dart Express 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. Blue Dart Express can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Air Courier industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Air Courier industry are lowering. It can presents Blue Dart Express with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Air Courier sector.
Increasing wage structure of Blue Dart Express
– 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 Blue Dart Express.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Blue Dart Express Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Blue Dart Express 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 Blue Dart Express 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 Blue Dart Express 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 Blue Dart Express 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 Blue Dart Express needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.