Dolphin Entertainment (DLPN) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Dolphin Entertainment (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Dolphin Entertainment is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Dolphin Entertainment

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Dolphin Entertainment can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dolphin Entertainment, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dolphin Entertainment 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Dolphin Entertainment can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Dolphin Entertainment
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dolphin Entertainment
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Motion Pictures sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Dolphin Entertainment

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Strengths of Dolphin Entertainment | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Dolphin Entertainment are -

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Dolphin Entertainment 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 Motion Pictures industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Dolphin Entertainment digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Dolphin Entertainment 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Motion Pictures industry

– Dolphin Entertainment is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Motion Pictures industry

– Dolphin Entertainment has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Dolphin Entertainment to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Motion Pictures industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Dolphin Entertainment to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Dolphin Entertainment in Motion Pictures industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Learning organization

- Dolphin Entertainment 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 Entertainment is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Dolphin Entertainment emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Dolphin Entertainment comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Motion Pictures 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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Dolphin Entertainment is one of the leading players in the Motion Pictures industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Dolphin Entertainment 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.

Ability to lead change in Motion Pictures

– Dolphin Entertainment is one of the leading players in the Motion Pictures industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Motion Pictures industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Dolphin Entertainment 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)

– Dolphin Entertainment has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Dolphin Entertainment staying ahead in the Motion Pictures industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Dolphin Entertainment has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Dolphin Entertainment 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.

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Weaknesses of Dolphin Entertainment | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Dolphin Entertainment are -

High bargaining power of channel partners in Motion Pictures industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Dolphin Entertainment 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 Motion Pictures industry.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of United States, Dolphin Entertainment needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Dolphin Entertainment has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Motion Pictures industry over the last five years. Dolphin Entertainment 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.

Need for greater diversity

– Dolphin Entertainment 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.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Motion Pictures industry, Dolphin Entertainment 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.

Skills based hiring in Motion Pictures industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Dolphin Entertainment 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.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Dolphin Entertainment, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Motion Pictures 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Dolphin Entertainment is just above the Motion Pictures industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.

Employees’ less understanding of Dolphin Entertainment strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Dolphin Entertainment 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.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Dolphin Entertainment is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Dolphin Entertainment to provide better information regarding Motion Pictures products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Dolphin Entertainment 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.

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Dolphin Entertainment Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Dolphin Entertainment are -

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Dolphin Entertainment in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Motion Pictures industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Dolphin Entertainment 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 Motion Pictures industry.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Dolphin Entertainment 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Dolphin Entertainment 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.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Motion Pictures industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Dolphin Entertainment in the Motion Pictures industry. Now Dolphin Entertainment can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Loyalty marketing

– Dolphin Entertainment 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Dolphin Entertainment can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Motion Pictures 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.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Motion Pictures industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Dolphin Entertainment 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 Entertainment 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Dolphin Entertainment is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Dolphin Entertainment can utilize new technology in the field of Motion Pictures industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Dolphin Entertainment 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 Entertainment to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Dolphin Entertainment to increase its market reach. Dolphin Entertainment 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Dolphin Entertainment 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Dolphin Entertainment 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 Dolphin Entertainment to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

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Threats Dolphin Entertainment External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Dolphin Entertainment are -

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Dolphin Entertainment in Motion Pictures industry. The Motion Pictures 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.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Dolphin Entertainment is facing in Motion Pictures sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Increasing wage structure of Dolphin Entertainment

– 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 Dolphin Entertainment.

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.

Environmental challenges

– Dolphin Entertainment 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 Entertainment can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Motion Pictures industry.

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 Dolphin Entertainment business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Dolphin Entertainment 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, Dolphin Entertainment 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 Entertainment prominent markets.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Dolphin Entertainment 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 Motion Pictures industry.

Regulatory challenges

– Dolphin Entertainment needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Motion Pictures industry regulations.

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.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Dolphin Entertainment may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Motion Pictures sector.

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 Entertainment.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Dolphin Entertainment Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Dolphin Entertainment 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 Entertainment 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 Entertainment 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 Entertainment 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 Entertainment needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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