Dolphin (DOLC) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Construction Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Dolphin (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Dolphin is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Dolphin can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dolphin, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dolphin 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 Dolphin can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Dolphin
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dolphin
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Construction Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Dolphin
Strengths of Dolphin | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Dolphin are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Dolphin is present in almost all the verticals within the Construction Services industry. This has provided Dolphin 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.
High brand equity
– Dolphin has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Dolphin to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Dolphin 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.
Digital Transformation in Construction Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Dolphin digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Dolphin 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Dolphin is one of the most innovative firm in Construction Services sector.
Training and development
– Dolphin has one of the best training and development program in Capital Goods 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 Construction Services industry
– Dolphin is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Dolphin comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Construction Services 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Construction Services industry
– Dolphin has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Dolphin to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Construction Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Dolphin to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Dolphin is one of the leading players in the Construction Services industry in United Kingdom. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United Kingdom. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Learning organization
- Dolphin 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 Dolphin is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Dolphin emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Dolphin in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Dolphin has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Dolphin to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Dolphin | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Dolphin are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Dolphin products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Dolphin needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Dolphin, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Construction Services 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.
Skills based hiring in Construction Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Dolphin 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Dolphin has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Construction Services industry over the last five years. Dolphin 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Dolphin 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 Construction Services industry using digital technology.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Dolphin is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Construction Services industry, but Dolphin needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Dolphin to focus more on services in the Construction Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Need for greater diversity
– Dolphin 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Dolphin needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Dolphin is one of the leading players in the Construction Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Construction Services industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Dolphin, in the dynamic environment of Construction Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Dolphin has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Construction Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Dolphin 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 Construction Services industry.
Dolphin Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Dolphin are -
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. Dolphin can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Dolphin can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Construction Services 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Dolphin can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Construction Services sector. 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Dolphin 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 Dolphin 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 Dolphin to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Dolphin has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Construction Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Dolphin to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Dolphin to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Construction Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Dolphin 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. Dolphin 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Dolphin has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Construction Services industry. This can help Dolphin to build a more holistic ecosystem for Dolphin products in the Construction Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Dolphin 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Dolphin 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 Construction Services industry.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Construction Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Dolphin can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Dolphin 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Dolphin 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.
Threats Dolphin External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Dolphin are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Dolphin may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Construction Services sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Dolphin 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 Dolphin prominent markets.
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 Dolphin.
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. Dolphin 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Construction Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Dolphin can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Dolphin in the Construction Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Dolphin has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Construction Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Dolphin needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Construction Services 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
– Dolphin 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.
Environmental challenges
– Dolphin 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. Dolphin can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Construction Services industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Construction Services industry are lowering. It can presents Dolphin with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Construction Services sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Dolphin 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 Construction Services industry and other sectors.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Dolphin 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 Construction Services industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Dolphin is facing in Construction Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Dolphin Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Dolphin 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 Dolphin 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 Dolphin 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 Dolphin 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 Dolphin needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.