Superior Lake (SUP) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Superior Lake (Australia)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Superior Lake is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Superior Lake

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Superior Lake can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Superior Lake, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Superior Lake 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Superior Lake can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Superior Lake
2. Improving business portfolio management of Superior Lake
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Gold & Silver sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Superior Lake

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Strengths of Superior Lake | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Superior Lake are -

High brand equity

– Superior Lake has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Superior Lake to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Ability to lead change in Gold & Silver

– Superior Lake is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Gold & Silver industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Superior Lake in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Diverse revenue streams

– Superior Lake is present in almost all the verticals within the Gold & Silver industry. This has provided Superior Lake 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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Superior Lake is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver industry in Australia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Australia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Superior Lake in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Superior Lake has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Superior Lake to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Organizational Resilience of Superior Lake

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Superior Lake does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Innovation driven organization

– Superior Lake is one of the most innovative firm in Gold & Silver sector.

Learning organization

- Superior Lake 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 Superior Lake is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Superior Lake emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Superior Lake has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Superior Lake 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.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Superior Lake 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.

Analytics focus

– Superior Lake 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 Gold & Silver industry. The technology infrastructure of Australia is also helping 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)

– Superior Lake has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Superior Lake staying ahead in the Gold & Silver industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

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Weaknesses of Superior Lake | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Superior Lake are -

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Superior Lake, in the dynamic environment of Gold & Silver industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Superior Lake has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Australia, Superior Lake needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Superior Lake is just above the Gold & Silver 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.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Superior Lake has some of the most successful models in the Gold & Silver industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Superior Lake should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Superior Lake 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 Gold & Silver industry using digital technology.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Superior Lake has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Gold & Silver industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Gold & Silver industry, Superior Lake 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Gold & Silver industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Superior Lake 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 Gold & Silver industry.

Employees’ less understanding of Superior Lake strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Superior Lake 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of Superior Lake products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Superior Lake needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Need for greater diversity

– Superior Lake 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.

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Superior Lake Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Superior Lake are -

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Superior Lake 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.

Manufacturing automation

– Superior Lake can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Gold & Silver sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.

Loyalty marketing

– Superior Lake 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 Superior Lake 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 Gold & Silver industry.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Superior Lake has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Gold & Silver sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Superior Lake to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Superior Lake to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Developing new processes and practices

– Superior Lake can develop new processes and procedures in Gold & Silver 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 Superior Lake has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Gold & Silver industry. This can help Superior Lake to build a more holistic ecosystem for Superior Lake products in the Gold & Silver industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Superior Lake can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Superior Lake operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Gold & Silver sector.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Superior Lake to increase its market reach. Superior Lake 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Superior Lake in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Gold & Silver industry, 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 Superior Lake 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Superior Lake 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 Superior Lake to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Gold & Silver industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Superior Lake can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Superior Lake can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.

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Threats Superior Lake External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Superior Lake are -

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Superior Lake 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.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Superior Lake is facing in Gold & Silver sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Gold & Silver industry are lowering. It can presents Superior Lake with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Gold & Silver sector.

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 Superior Lake.

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 Superior Lake in the Gold & Silver sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Environmental challenges

– Superior Lake 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. Superior Lake can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Gold & Silver industry.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Superior Lake has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Gold & Silver industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Superior Lake needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Gold & Silver 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.

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. Superior Lake 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, Superior Lake 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 Superior Lake prominent markets.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Gold & Silver industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Superior Lake can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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. Superior Lake needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Gold & Silver industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

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.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Superior Lake in Gold & Silver industry. The Gold & Silver 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Superior Lake Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Superior Lake 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 Superior Lake 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 Superior Lake 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 Superior Lake 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 Superior Lake needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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