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Dunkin Brands (DNKN) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Dunkin Brands (United States)


Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Dunkin Brands is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Dunkin Brands


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Dunkin Brands can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dunkin Brands, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dunkin Brands 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 Dunkin Brands can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Dunkin Brands
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dunkin Brands
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Restaurants sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Dunkin Brands




Strengths of Dunkin Brands | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Dunkin Brands are -

Innovation driven organization

– Dunkin Brands is one of the most innovative firm in Restaurants sector.

Training and development

– Dunkin Brands has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Dunkin Brands in Restaurants industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Strong track record of project management in the Restaurants industry

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

Analytics focus

– Dunkin Brands 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 Restaurants 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.

Successful track record of launching new products

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

Digital Transformation in Restaurants industry

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

High brand equity

– Dunkin Brands has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Dunkin Brands to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Dunkin Brands in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Dunkin Brands has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Dunkin Brands to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Organizational Resilience of Dunkin Brands

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Dunkin Brands does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Restaurants industry

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

Diverse revenue streams

– Dunkin Brands is present in almost all the verticals within the Restaurants industry. This has provided Dunkin Brands 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 Dunkin Brands | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Dunkin Brands are -

Slow to harness new channels of communication

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

High dependence on Dunkin Brands ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Dunkin Brands still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Restaurants industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Dunkin Brands has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

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 Dunkin Brands supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Dunkin Brands is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Dunkin Brands vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Dunkin Brands has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Restaurants industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Dunkin Brands 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Dunkin Brands needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Restaurants industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Dunkin Brands can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Dunkin Brands is planning to shift buying processes online.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Dunkin Brands, in the dynamic environment of Restaurants industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Dunkin Brands has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Lack of clear differentiation of Dunkin Brands products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Dunkin Brands needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Dunkin Brands has some of the most successful models in the Restaurants industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Dunkin Brands 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, Dunkin Brands needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Dunkin Brands 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 Restaurants industry using digital technology.




Dunkin Brands Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The opportunities of Dunkin Brands are -

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Dunkin Brands has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Restaurants sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Dunkin Brands to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Dunkin Brands to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Dunkin Brands can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Restaurants industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Dunkin Brands 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. Dunkin Brands 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

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

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Dunkin Brands can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Dunkin Brands operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Restaurants sector.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

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. Dunkin Brands can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Dunkin Brands 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 Restaurants industry.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Restaurants industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Dunkin Brands can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Buying journey improvements

– Dunkin Brands can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Restaurants 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Dunkin Brands 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

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

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Dunkin Brands has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Restaurants industry. This can help Dunkin Brands to build a more holistic ecosystem for Dunkin Brands products in the Restaurants industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.




Threats Dunkin Brands External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats of Dunkin Brands are -

Regulatory challenges

– Dunkin Brands 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 Restaurants industry regulations.

Learning curve for new practices

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

Consumer confidence and its impact on Dunkin Brands 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 Restaurants industry and other sectors.

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 Dunkin Brands business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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.

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 Dunkin Brands in the Restaurants sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Environmental challenges

– Dunkin Brands 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. Dunkin Brands can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Restaurants industry.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Restaurants industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Dunkin Brands can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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. Dunkin Brands needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Restaurants industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Dunkin Brands 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 Restaurants industry.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Dunkin Brands 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 Dunkin Brands prominent markets.

Increasing wage structure of Dunkin Brands

– 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 Dunkin Brands.

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.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of Dunkin Brands Template, Example


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



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