Smarthalo SWOT Analysis final project PDF

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SWOT Analysis for the final project assignment....

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SMARTHALO SWOT Analysis A concise SWOT analysis can further underline the relevance of entering the Dutch market. Smarthalo can leverage its current success and expertise in the Canadian market to respond to the threat posed by competitors, as well as respond efficiently to opportunities in the Dutch market to alleviate SmartHalo’s lack of experience dealing with the European market.

Strengths SmartHalo sports a product with multiple features that are not offered by other bicycle gadgets on the European market, at a competitive price. As a company, SmartHalo Technologies Inc. has also seen a growing global reputation and media coverage that has reached Europe through blogs and articles from specialized sports and cycling-oriented websites. Finally, the government and City of Montreal have shown support for SmartHalo multiple times, creating a greater credibility surrounding their capability to deliver a quality product.

Weaknesses Even though the company ships its product worldwide through its website, SmartHalo lacks experience regarding the sale of its product in the global marketplace, especially in brickand-mortar stores. It will therefore need to rely on the experience, knowledge, and capability of its retailers for the sale of its products as well as the competence of its team on Dutch grounds to ensure in-store product sales are successful. Moreover, as SmartHalo’s success and popularity has been majorly limited to North America, it might find difficulties in negotiating deals in the Netherlands and proving itself as a mature company.

Opportunities As cycling has become an increasingly convenient mode of transportation for urban residents, the Dutch government has been facing infrastructure issues due to the high traffic of cyclists in urban areas, such as Amsterdam (City Lab, 2015). Indeed, “this has put severe pressure on the cycling infrastructure of major cities. This infrastructure includes cycling lanes and parking spaces…” (Euromonitor International, 2016). One of SmartHalo’s main objectives as a company is to “push for greener cities” by “gathering anonymized data on cyclist’s habits to better help city planners design smart cities” (SmartHalo, 2017). This could be used as an asset to build good government relations within the cities SmartHalo plans to enter. Moreover, as analysed previously in the Market Overview, the Netherlands is a suitable market in which to sell a bicycle-centred product. SmartHalo has previously stricken deals with bicycle sharing services such as Bixi. SmartHalo could arrange deals with bike sharing services

such as Amsterdam-based OV-Fiet (NS Transportation Services, 2017) or even bicycle rental shops, which are omnipresent in Dutch cities such as Amsterdam and Utrecht. Finally, a ban on smartphones has been in the works in the Netherlands following rising public concern regarding the amount of accidents linked to smartphone use whilst cycling; indeed, “in 2014 that smartphones played a role in one-in-five bike accidents involving young cyclists” (The Guardian, 2016). Although the proposed smartphone ban would allow the use of earphones, it would not allow the use of smartphone directly, including phones attached to handlebars for use as GPS. The ban had not taken place when first proposed in 2016 as courts have ruled monitoring phone use too difficult but the subject frequently returns on the table (Iamexpat, 2016). The SmartHalo could profit from such a ban by providing a safe and legal navigation device.

Threats The main threat and competitor to SmartHalo is Beeline, which offers a simpler yet as sleek and modern product, similar to SmartHalo. As this competitor is based in the UK, it already has quick access to the European market and could more easily enter the Dutch market more easily if it pleases. Currently, Beeline ships throughout Europe online but does not sell in brickand-mortar stores in the Netherlands. Other competitors such as Garmin, although offering more fitness and performance GPS products, could possibly attempt to create new product lines to compete in the leisure cyclists market....