Dalata Hotel (DLTTF) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Hotels & Motels
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Dalata Hotel (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Dalata Hotel is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Dalata Hotel can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dalata Hotel, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dalata Hotel 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 Dalata Hotel can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Dalata Hotel
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dalata Hotel
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Hotels & Motels sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Dalata Hotel
Strengths of Dalata Hotel | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Dalata Hotel are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Dalata Hotel 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Dalata Hotel in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Dalata Hotel has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Dalata Hotel to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the Hotels & Motels industry
– Dalata Hotel 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 brand equity
– Dalata Hotel has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Dalata Hotel to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Hotels & Motels industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Dalata Hotel digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Dalata Hotel 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Dalata Hotel has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Hotels & Motels industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Dalata Hotel have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Dalata Hotel is one of the leading players in the Hotels & Motels 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Hotels & Motels industry
– Dalata Hotel has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Dalata Hotel to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Hotels & Motels industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Dalata Hotel to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Dalata Hotel 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 Hotels & Motels industry. The technology infrastructure of United States 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Dalata Hotel is present in almost all the verticals within the Hotels & Motels industry. This has provided Dalata Hotel 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.
Learning organization
- Dalata Hotel 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 Dalata Hotel is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Dalata Hotel emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Dalata Hotel in Hotels & Motels industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Dalata Hotel | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Dalata Hotel are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Dalata Hotel 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Dalata Hotel has some of the most successful models in the Hotels & Motels industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Dalata Hotel should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Dalata Hotel needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
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 Dalata Hotel supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Dalata Hotel is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Dalata Hotel vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Hotels & Motels industry, Dalata Hotel 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 dependence on Dalata Hotel ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Dalata Hotel still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Hotels & Motels industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Dalata Hotel has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Dalata Hotel is one of the leading players in the Hotels & Motels industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Hotels & Motels industry in last five years.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Dalata Hotel has high operating costs in the Hotels & Motels industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Dalata Hotel lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Dalata Hotel 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 Hotels & Motels industry using digital technology.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Dalata Hotel has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Hotels & Motels industry over the last five years. Dalata Hotel 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
– Dalata Hotel 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.
Dalata Hotel Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Dalata Hotel are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Dalata Hotel 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, Dalata Hotel 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 Dalata Hotel to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Dalata Hotel 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Dalata Hotel has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Hotels & Motels industry. This can help Dalata Hotel to build a more holistic ecosystem for Dalata Hotel products in the Hotels & Motels industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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, Dalata Hotel can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Dalata Hotel operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Hotels & Motels sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Dalata Hotel 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Dalata Hotel to increase its market reach. Dalata Hotel 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Hotels & Motels industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Dalata Hotel 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. Dalata Hotel 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.
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. Dalata Hotel can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Dalata Hotel 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 Hotels & Motels industry.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Dalata Hotel has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Hotels & Motels sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Dalata Hotel to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Dalata Hotel to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Manufacturing automation
– Dalata Hotel can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Hotels & Motels 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Dalata Hotel can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Dalata Hotel External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Dalata Hotel are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Dalata Hotel 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 Dalata Hotel prominent markets.
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 Dalata Hotel business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Dalata Hotel 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Dalata Hotel 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 Hotels & Motels industry.
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. Dalata Hotel needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Hotels & Motels industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Dalata Hotel 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 Hotels & Motels industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of Dalata Hotel
– 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 Dalata Hotel.
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 Dalata Hotel in the Hotels & Motels sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Dalata Hotel is facing in Hotels & Motels sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Dalata Hotel may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Hotels & Motels sector.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Hotels & Motels industry are lowering. It can presents Dalata Hotel with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Hotels & Motels sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Dalata Hotel has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Hotels & Motels industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Dalata Hotel needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Hotels & Motels 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Dalata Hotel Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Dalata Hotel 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 Dalata Hotel 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 Dalata Hotel 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 Dalata Hotel 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 Dalata Hotel needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.