Drone Services USA (DSUS) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Drone Services USA (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Drone Services USA is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
geopolitical disruptions, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Drone Services USA
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Drone Services USA can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Drone Services USA, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Drone Services USA 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 Drone Services USA can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Drone Services USA
2. Improving business portfolio management of Drone Services USA
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Drone Services USA
Strengths of Drone Services USA | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Drone Services USA are -
Organizational Resilience of Drone Services USA
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Drone Services USA does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Drone Services USA has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Drone Services USA to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Drone Services USA is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Drone Services USA 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.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Drone Services USA digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Drone Services USA 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.
Training and development
– Drone Services USA has one of the best training and development program in 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 industry
– Drone Services USA is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Drone Services USA is one of the leading players in the 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Drone Services USA has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Drone Services USA 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.
Learning organization
- Drone Services USA 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 Drone Services USA is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Drone Services USA emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Drone Services USA 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Drone Services USA in the sector have low bargaining power. Drone Services USA has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Drone Services USA to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Drone Services USA has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Drone Services USA have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Drone Services USA | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Drone Services USA are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Drone Services USA is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Drone Services USA needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Drone Services USA to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Drone Services USA needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Drone Services USA can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Drone Services USA is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Drone Services USA has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Drone Services USA should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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 Drone Services USA supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Drone Services USA is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Drone Services USA vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Drone Services USA is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Drone Services USA 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 industry using digital technology.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Drone Services USA 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 industry.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Drone Services USA 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.
High dependence on Drone Services USA ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Drone Services USA still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Drone Services USA has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Drone Services USA is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Drone Services USA to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Drone Services USA 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.
Drone Services USA Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Drone Services USA are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Drone Services USA in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Drone Services USA has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Drone Services USA to build a more holistic ecosystem for Drone Services USA products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Drone Services USA to increase its market reach. Drone Services USA 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Drone Services USA can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Developing new processes and practices
– Drone Services USA can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Drone Services USA 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Drone Services USA 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. Drone Services USA 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Drone Services USA 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 industry.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Drone Services USA 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Drone Services USA can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Drone Services USA 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, Drone Services USA is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Drone Services USA can utilize new technology in the field of industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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 Drone Services USA 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.
Threats Drone Services USA External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Drone Services USA are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Drone Services USA 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 Drone Services USA 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 Drone Services USA business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Drone Services USA 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 industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Drone Services USA with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Drone Services USA is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Drone Services USA has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Drone Services USA needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the 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.
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. Drone Services USA 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.
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 Drone Services USA.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Drone Services USA
– 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 Drone Services USA.
Environmental challenges
– Drone Services USA 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. Drone Services USA can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Drone Services USA 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Drone Services USA can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Drone Services USA Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Drone Services USA 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 Drone Services USA 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 Drone Services USA 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 Drone Services USA 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 Drone Services USA needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
