Opera (OPRA) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Software & Programming
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Opera (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Opera is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, 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%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Opera can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Opera, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Opera 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 Opera can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Opera
2. Improving business portfolio management of Opera
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Software & Programming sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Opera
Strengths of Opera | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Opera are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Opera in Software & Programming industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Opera is one of the most innovative firm in Software & Programming sector.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Opera is one of the leading players in the Software & Programming 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
– Opera has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Opera 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Opera 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.
High brand equity
– Opera has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Opera to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Opera is present in almost all the verticals within the Software & Programming industry. This has provided Opera 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.
Organizational Resilience of Opera
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Opera does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Opera comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Software & Programming 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 lead change in Software & Programming
– Opera is one of the leading players in the Software & Programming industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Software & Programming industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Opera in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Opera in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Opera has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Opera to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Software & Programming industry
– Opera has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Opera to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Software & Programming industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Opera to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Opera | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Opera are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Opera is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Software & Programming industry, but Opera needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Opera to focus more on services in the Software & Programming industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Opera is one of the leading players in the Software & Programming industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Software & Programming industry in last five years.
Lack of clear differentiation of Opera products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Opera needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Opera 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Opera needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Opera needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Software & Programming industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Opera can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Opera is planning to shift buying processes online.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Opera 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 Software & Programming industry using digital technology.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Opera 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.
High dependence on Opera ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Opera still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Software & Programming industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Opera has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Software & Programming industry, Opera 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Opera is just above the Software & Programming 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.
Opera Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Opera are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Software & Programming industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Opera in the Software & Programming industry. Now Opera can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Opera in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Software & Programming industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Opera to increase its market reach. Opera 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Opera is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Opera can utilize new technology in the field of Software & Programming industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Software & Programming industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Opera can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Opera 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 Opera to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Opera can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Opera operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Software & Programming sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Opera 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Opera can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Software & Programming 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Opera can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Software & Programming 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Opera 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 Opera 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
– Opera 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Opera 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.
Threats Opera External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Opera are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Opera has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Software & Programming industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Opera needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Software & Programming 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.
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. Opera needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Software & Programming industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Opera 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.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Opera 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 Software & Programming industry and other sectors.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Opera 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 Software & Programming industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Opera 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.
Environmental challenges
– Opera 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. Opera can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Software & Programming industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Opera 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 Opera prominent markets.
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 Opera.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Opera may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Software & Programming sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Opera in Software & Programming industry. The Software & Programming 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Opera Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Opera 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 Opera 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 Opera 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 Opera 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 Opera needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.