Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies
This case deals with the problems that Platmin faces as it heads toward full production at a new open-cast mine in the Pilanesberg area in South Africa. Platmin is caught in a very difficult situation that is affecting the viability of the operation: the main issue is the timing of the production - investment in mining is typically heavy in the beginning, but when the mine starts producing, payback of loans is usually substantial. Any delay in production has an exaggerated effect on the payback period and, by extension, the viability of the mine. The second major issue is the economic downturn, which has seen the price of platinum decline substantially; however, this may benefit Platmin because it is a low-cost producer, and the downturn has led to some competitors leaving the industry or mothballing operations that are not viable at the current platinum price. On the other hand, while Platmin is seeing a shakeup in the industry, it is experiencing pressures on its margins, and this also has an effect on its capital funding.
Swot Analysis of "Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies" written by Albert Wocke, Robert Grosse includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Platmin Mine facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Emerging markets, Government, Labor, Leadership, Strategy and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Platmin Mine, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Platmin Mine 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 Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Platmin Mine
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Platmin Mine
Strengths Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Platmin Mine in Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– Platmin Mine is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Platmin Mine has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Platmin Mine 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 Platmin Mine is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Platmin Mine 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 industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Albert Wocke, Robert Grosse can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
High brand equity
– Platmin Mine has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Platmin Mine to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Platmin Mine in the sector have low bargaining power. Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Platmin Mine to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Platmin Mine is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Platmin Mine in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Platmin Mine is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies case study 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Platmin Mine 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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Platmin Mine is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Platmin Mine in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Platmin Mine digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Platmin Mine 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.
Weaknesses Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies, is just above the industry average. Platmin Mine 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Platmin Mine products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Platmin Mine needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Platmin Mine 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies, in the dynamic environment Platmin Mine has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Platmin Mine has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Need for greater diversity
– Platmin Mine 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Platmin Mine is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Platmin Mine needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Platmin Mine to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Platmin Mine has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
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 Platmin Mine supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Platmin Mine vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Platmin Mine 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Platmin Mine has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies, it seems that the employees of Platmin Mine 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.
Opportunities Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Platmin Mine in the consumer business. Now Platmin Mine can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Platmin Mine 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Platmin Mine 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Platmin Mine in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Leadership & Managing People segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– Platmin Mine can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies suggest that firm 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Platmin Mine has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Platmin Mine to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Platmin Mine to increase its market reach. Platmin Mine 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Platmin Mine can develop new processes and procedures in Leadership & Managing People 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Platmin Mine can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Platmin Mine is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology 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 Platmin Mine 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Leadership & Managing People industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Platmin Mine can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Platmin Mine 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.
Threats Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies are -
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 Platmin Mine in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Platmin Mine in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The Leadership & Managing People 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.
Increasing wage structure of Platmin Mine
– 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 Platmin Mine.
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 Platmin Mine business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Platmin Mine is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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. Platmin Mine needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Platmin Mine can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies, Platmin Mine may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Leadership & Managing People .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Platmin Mine has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Platmin Mine needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Leadership & Managing People 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Platmin Mine 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 the industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Platmin Mine 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies 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 the case study Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies 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 the Harvard case study Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies 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 Platmin Mining: Managing Your Stakeholders in Developing Economies is 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 Platmin Mine needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
