The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto 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 (E): Rio Tinto
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 (E): Rio Tinto" 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 (E): Rio Tinto 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 (E): Rio Tinto casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto 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 (E): Rio Tinto can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto 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 (E): Rio Tinto | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Pebble Mine in The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Pebble Mine in the sector have low bargaining power. The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto 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.
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.
High brand equity
– Pebble Mine has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Pebble Mine to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Pebble 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 Pebble Mine is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Pebble 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 Alan Krause, Lisa Johnson 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.
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 (E): Rio Tinto - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto 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.
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 (E): Rio Tinto HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Pebble Mine is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
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.
Weaknesses The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto are -
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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto, 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.
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.
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 (E): Rio Tinto can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Pebble Mine is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Pebble Mine needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Pebble Mine to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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.
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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Pebble Mine, firm in the HBR case study The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Pebble Mine is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto, 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto HBR case study mentions - Pebble Mine takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Opportunities The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto | 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 (E): Rio Tinto are -
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 (E): Rio Tinto 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.
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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Pebble 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.
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. Pebble Mine can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Pebble Mine to increase its market reach. Pebble 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.
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.
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. Pebble Mine can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 (E): Rio Tinto case study. Pebble Mine can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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.
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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Pebble Mine 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 Leadership & Managing People segment.
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 (E): Rio Tinto, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto 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 (E): Rio Tinto are -
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Pebble 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, Pebble 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.
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 Pebble Mine.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto, Pebble 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 .
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.
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 Pebble Mine business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
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. Pebble Mine needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Pebble Mine 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 prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto .
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Pebble Mine is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The Pebble Mine (E): Rio Tinto 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 (E): Rio Tinto 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 (E): Rio Tinto 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 (E): Rio Tinto 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 (E): Rio Tinto 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.