Cleveland Mining Co Ltd (CDG) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Gold & Silver
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Cleveland Mining Co Ltd (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Cleveland Mining Co Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices, increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
wage bills are increasing, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Cleveland Mining Co Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Cleveland Mining Co Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cleveland Mining Co Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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 Cleveland Mining Co Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Cleveland Mining Co Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cleveland Mining Co Ltd
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 Cleveland Mining Co Ltd
Strengths of Cleveland Mining Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cleveland Mining Co Ltd are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Gold & Silver industry
– Cleveland Mining Co Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Cleveland Mining Co Ltd has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Cleveland Mining Co Ltd in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Cleveland Mining Co Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Cleveland Mining Co Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Gold & Silver industry
– Cleveland Mining Co Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Cleveland Mining Co Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Gold & Silver industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Cleveland Mining Co Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Cleveland Mining Co Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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.
Digital Transformation in Gold & Silver industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Cleveland Mining Co Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Cleveland Mining Co Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Gold & Silver industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Cleveland Mining Co Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Cleveland Mining Co Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Cleveland Mining Co Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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 Cleveland Mining Co Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Cleveland Mining Co Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Cleveland Mining Co Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Cleveland Mining Co Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of Cleveland Mining Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Cleveland Mining Co Ltd are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Gold & Silver industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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.
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 Cleveland Mining Co Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Cleveland Mining Co Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Cleveland Mining Co Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Cleveland Mining Co Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Gold & Silver industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Cleveland Mining Co Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Cleveland Mining Co Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Gold & Silver industry, Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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.
Skills based hiring in Gold & Silver industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Cleveland Mining Co Ltd has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Cleveland Mining Co Ltd has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Gold & Silver industry over the last five years. Cleveland Mining Co Ltd even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Cleveland Mining Co Ltd has high operating costs in the Gold & Silver industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Cleveland Mining Co Ltd lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Cleveland Mining Co Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Cleveland Mining Co Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Cleveland Mining Co Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Gold & Silver industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Cleveland Mining Co Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Cleveland Mining Co Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Cleveland Mining Co Ltd are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Cleveland Mining Co Ltd to increase its market reach. Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Gold & Silver industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Cleveland Mining Co Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Cleveland Mining Co Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Gold & Silver industry. This can help Cleveland Mining Co Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Cleveland Mining Co Ltd products in the Gold & Silver industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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 Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Gold & Silver industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Cleveland Mining Co Ltd in the Gold & Silver industry. Now Cleveland Mining Co Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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 Cleveland Mining Co Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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
– Cleveland Mining Co Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Gold & Silver industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Cleveland Mining Co Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Cleveland Mining Co Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Gold & Silver industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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.
Threats Cleveland Mining Co Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Cleveland Mining Co Ltd are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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.
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 Cleveland Mining Co Ltd in the Gold & Silver sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Cleveland Mining Co Ltd
– 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 Cleveland Mining Co Ltd.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Gold & Silver industry are lowering. It can presents Cleveland Mining Co Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Gold & Silver sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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 Gold & Silver industry and other sectors.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Cleveland Mining Co Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Gold & Silver sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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.
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 Cleveland Mining Co Ltd.
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. Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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, Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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 Cleveland Mining Co Ltd prominent markets.
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. Cleveland Mining Co Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Gold & Silver industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Cleveland Mining Co Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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 Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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 Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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 Cleveland Mining Co Ltd 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 Cleveland Mining Co Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.