Dutaland (DUTA) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Crops
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Dutaland (Malaysia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Dutaland is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Dutaland can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dutaland, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dutaland 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 Dutaland can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Dutaland
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dutaland
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Malaysia
4. Making a Crops sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Dutaland
Strengths of Dutaland | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Dutaland are -
Analytics focus
– Dutaland 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 Crops industry. The technology infrastructure of Malaysia is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Ability to lead change in Crops
– Dutaland is one of the leading players in the Crops industry in Malaysia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Crops industry in Malaysia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Dutaland in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Dutaland has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Dutaland staying ahead in the Crops industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Crops industry
– Dutaland has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Dutaland to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Crops industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Dutaland to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Dutaland has one of the best training and development program in Consumer/Non-Cyclical 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Dutaland has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Dutaland 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Dutaland comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Crops 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Dutaland is one of the most innovative firm in Crops sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Dutaland in Crops industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Dutaland 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 Dutaland is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Dutaland emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Dutaland has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Dutaland to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Dutaland is present in almost all the verticals within the Crops industry. This has provided Dutaland 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 of Dutaland | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Dutaland are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Dutaland is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Crops industry, but Dutaland needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Dutaland to focus more on services in the Crops industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Dutaland is one of the leading players in the Crops industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Crops industry in last five years.
Lack of clear differentiation of Dutaland products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Dutaland 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 Dutaland, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Crops 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 Crops industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Dutaland 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Dutaland 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Dutaland has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Crops industry over the last five years. Dutaland 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Crops industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Malaysia, Dutaland 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 Crops industry.
Employees’ less understanding of Dutaland strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Dutaland 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Dutaland has some of the most successful models in the Crops industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Dutaland should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Dutaland needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Crops industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Dutaland can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Dutaland is planning to shift buying processes online.
Dutaland Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Dutaland are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Dutaland can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Dutaland operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Crops sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Dutaland has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Crops industry. This can help Dutaland to build a more holistic ecosystem for Dutaland products in the Crops industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Crops industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Dutaland 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. Dutaland 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Dutaland can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Crops 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Dutaland in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Crops industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Dutaland 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Dutaland can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Dutaland 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 Crops industry.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Dutaland 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 Dutaland to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Dutaland 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Dutaland can develop new processes and procedures in Crops 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Dutaland 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 Dutaland to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Dutaland 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 Dutaland External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Dutaland are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Dutaland 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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Crops industry are lowering. It can presents Dutaland with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Crops sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Dutaland 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 Crops industry and other sectors.
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. Dutaland 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.
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 Dutaland in the Crops sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Dutaland 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 Dutaland prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Dutaland
– 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 Dutaland.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Dutaland in Crops industry. The Crops 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Crops industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Dutaland can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Dutaland has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Crops industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Dutaland needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Crops 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Dutaland is facing in Crops sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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. Dutaland needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Crops industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Dutaland Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Dutaland 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 Dutaland 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 Dutaland 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 Dutaland 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 Dutaland needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.