SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Dassault Aviation (France)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Dassault Aviation is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Dassault Aviation
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Dassault Aviation can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dassault Aviation, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dassault Aviation 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 Dassault Aviation can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Dassault Aviation
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dassault Aviation
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in France
4. Making a Aerospace & Defense sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Dassault Aviation
Strengths of Dassault Aviation | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Dassault Aviation are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Dassault Aviation comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Aerospace & Defense 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Dassault Aviation in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Dassault Aviation has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Dassault Aviation to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Aerospace & Defense industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Dassault Aviation digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Dassault Aviation 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
– Dassault Aviation has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Dassault Aviation to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Dassault Aviation 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Aerospace & Defense industry
– Dassault Aviation has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Dassault Aviation to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Aerospace & Defense industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Dassault Aviation to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Dassault Aviation 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Dassault Aviation in Aerospace & Defense industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Dassault Aviation 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 Aerospace & Defense industry. The technology infrastructure of France 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.
Ability to lead change in Aerospace & Defense
– Dassault Aviation is one of the leading players in the Aerospace & Defense industry in France. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Aerospace & Defense industry in France but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Dassault Aviation 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)
– Dassault Aviation has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Dassault Aviation staying ahead in the Aerospace & Defense industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Dassault Aviation is one of the most innovative firm in Aerospace & Defense sector.
Weaknesses of Dassault Aviation | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Dassault Aviation are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Dassault Aviation has some of the most successful models in the Aerospace & Defense industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Dassault Aviation should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Dassault Aviation needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Aerospace & Defense industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Dassault Aviation can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Dassault Aviation is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on Dassault Aviation ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Dassault Aviation still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Aerospace & Defense industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Dassault Aviation has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ less understanding of Dassault Aviation strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Dassault Aviation 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of France, Dassault Aviation needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Dassault Aviation, in the dynamic environment of Aerospace & Defense industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Dassault Aviation has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Dassault Aviation 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 Aerospace & Defense industry using digital technology.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Dassault Aviation is just above the Aerospace & Defense 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Dassault Aviation is one of the leading players in the Aerospace & Defense industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Aerospace & Defense industry in last five years.
Lack of clear differentiation of Dassault Aviation products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Dassault Aviation needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Dassault Aviation has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Aerospace & Defense industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Dassault Aviation Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Dassault Aviation are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Dassault Aviation 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Dassault Aviation is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Dassault Aviation can utilize new technology in the field of Aerospace & Defense industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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. Dassault Aviation can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Aerospace & Defense industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Dassault Aviation 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. Dassault Aviation 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Dassault Aviation can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Dassault Aviation operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Aerospace & Defense sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Dassault Aviation can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Aerospace & Defense 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
– Dassault Aviation can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Aerospace & Defense 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Dassault Aviation can develop new processes and procedures in Aerospace & Defense 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 Dassault Aviation 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Dassault Aviation 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.
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 Dassault Aviation 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Dassault Aviation 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Dassault Aviation has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Aerospace & Defense industry. This can help Dassault Aviation to build a more holistic ecosystem for Dassault Aviation products in the Aerospace & Defense industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Dassault Aviation External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Dassault Aviation are -
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. Dassault Aviation 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 Dassault Aviation 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 Aerospace & Defense industry and other sectors.
Increasing wage structure of Dassault Aviation
– 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 Dassault Aviation.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Aerospace & Defense industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Dassault Aviation can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Dassault Aviation 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 Dassault Aviation prominent markets.
Regulatory challenges
– Dassault Aviation 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 Aerospace & Defense industry regulations.
Environmental challenges
– Dassault Aviation 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. Dassault Aviation can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Aerospace & Defense industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Aerospace & Defense industry are lowering. It can presents Dassault Aviation with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Aerospace & Defense sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Dassault Aviation 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.
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.
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 Dassault Aviation.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Dassault Aviation 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 Aerospace & Defense industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Dassault Aviation Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Dassault Aviation 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 Dassault Aviation 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 Dassault Aviation 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 Dassault Aviation 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 Dassault Aviation needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
