Visiodent (VDNT) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Software & Programming
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Visiodent (France)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Visiodent is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, increasing energy prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Visiodent can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Visiodent, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Visiodent 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 Visiodent can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Visiodent
2. Improving business portfolio management of Visiodent
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in France
4. Making a Software & Programming sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Visiodent
Strengths of Visiodent | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Visiodent are -
Training and development
– Visiodent has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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 Software & Programming industry
– Visiodent is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Visiodent 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 switching costs
– The high switching costs that Visiodent 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Visiodent in Software & Programming industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Visiodent in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Visiodent has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Visiodent to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Visiodent is one of the most innovative firm in Software & Programming sector.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Visiodent has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Visiodent staying ahead in the Software & Programming industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Visiodent 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 Visiodent is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Visiodent emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Visiodent has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Visiodent 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Visiodent is one of the leading players in the Software & Programming industry in France. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in France. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Diverse revenue streams
– Visiodent is present in almost all the verticals within the Software & Programming industry. This has provided Visiodent 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 Visiodent | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Visiodent are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Software & Programming industry, Visiodent 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 Visiodent 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Visiodent 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Visiodent, in the dynamic environment of Software & Programming industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Visiodent has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Visiodent has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Software & Programming industry over the last five years. Visiodent 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Visiodent 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 Visiodent 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 Visiodent can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Visiodent is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Visiodent has some of the most successful models in the Software & Programming industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Visiodent should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Software & Programming industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in France, Visiodent 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 Software & Programming industry.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Visiodent has high operating costs in the Software & Programming industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Visiodent lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Visiodent 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.
Visiodent Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Visiodent are -
Buying journey improvements
– Visiodent 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Visiodent 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Visiodent 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Visiodent has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Software & Programming sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Visiodent to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Visiodent to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Visiodent 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.
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. Visiodent 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
– Visiodent can develop new processes and procedures in Software & Programming 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Visiodent 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 Visiodent to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Visiodent 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Visiodent is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Visiodent 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Visiodent 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.
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 Visiodent in the Software & Programming industry. Now Visiodent can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Visiodent 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 Software & Programming industry.
Threats Visiodent External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Visiodent are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Visiodent 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 Visiodent prominent markets.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Visiodent has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Software & Programming industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Visiodent 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.
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.
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. Visiodent 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.
Environmental challenges
– Visiodent 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. Visiodent can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Software & Programming industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Visiodent is facing in Software & Programming sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Visiodent in the Software & Programming sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Visiodent 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 Software & Programming industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Visiodent 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.
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 Visiodent.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Software & Programming industry are lowering. It can presents Visiodent with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Software & Programming sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Visiodent 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Visiodent 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 Visiodent Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Visiodent 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 Visiodent 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 Visiodent 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 Visiodent 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 Visiodent needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.