The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center
Supplement to case W16178. Alaska's economy had struggled for many years; however, in spring 2014, the Pebble Mine presented an opportunity to revitalize it. There was just one catch; the Pebble deposit was located in the headwaters of one of the richest salmon hatcheries in the world. Corporations, government agencies, and public interest groups clashed during the first few months of 2014 concerning not only whether the Pebble Mine should be developed but also who had the authority to make that decision.
Swot Analysis of "The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center" written by Alan Krause, Lisa Johnson includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Pebble Mine facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Strategy and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Pebble Mine, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Pebble 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 The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Pebble 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 Pebble Mine
Strengths The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Pebble Mine in The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center Harvard Business Review case study are -
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Pebble Mine digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Pebble 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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Pebble 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 Pebble Mine in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management
– Pebble 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Pebble Mine 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.
Organizational Resilience of Pebble Mine
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Pebble Mine does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Pebble Mine in the sector have low bargaining power. The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Pebble Mine to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Pebble 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Pebble Mine to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Pebble Mine to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Pebble Mine is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Pebble 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 The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Pebble Mine has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Pebble Mine 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Pebble Mine has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Pebble Mine 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 industry using digital technology.
Lack of clear differentiation of Pebble Mine products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Pebble Mine needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center 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 Pebble Mine has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Leadership & Managing People strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center, is just above the industry average. Pebble 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Pebble Mine, firm in the HBR case study The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Pebble Mine is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Pebble 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Pebble 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Pebble 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center, it seems that the employees of Pebble 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 The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center | 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 The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Pebble Mine can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Pebble Mine operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Pebble 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, Pebble Mine is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Pebble Mine 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, as suggested in case study, The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Pebble Mine 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 Pebble Mine to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Pebble 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Pebble 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Pebble Mine has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Pebble Mine to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center case study. Pebble Mine can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Pebble 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Pebble Mine can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Pebble 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.
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 Pebble 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.
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 Pebble Mine in the consumer business. Now Pebble Mine can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center are -
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. Pebble Mine can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Pebble Mine 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. Pebble Mine can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Pebble 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
– Pebble 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Pebble Mine with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Pebble Mine 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 Leadership & Managing People industry regulations.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Pebble 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Pebble Mine 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 field.
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 Pebble Mine in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Pebble Mine 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.
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 Pebble Mine.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center 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 The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center 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 The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center 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 The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center 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 The Pebble Mine (G): Wild Salmon Center 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 Pebble Mine needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
