European Metals Holdings (EMH) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for European Metals Holdings (Australia)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , European Metals Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, increasing commodity prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of European Metals Holdings

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that European Metals Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the European Metals Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which European Metals Holdings 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 European Metals Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of European Metals Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of European Metals Holdings
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Metal Mining sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of European Metals Holdings

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Strengths of European Metals Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of European Metals Holdings are -

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of European Metals Holdings in Metal Mining industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Successful track record of launching new products

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

Training and development

– European Metals Holdings 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Metal Mining industry

– European Metals Holdings is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

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

Innovation driven organization

– European Metals Holdings is one of the most innovative firm in Metal Mining sector.

Learning organization

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

Diverse revenue streams

– European Metals Holdings is present in almost all the verticals within the Metal Mining industry. This has provided European Metals Holdings 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.

Organizational Resilience of European Metals Holdings

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

Ability to lead change in Metal Mining

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

Digital Transformation in Metal Mining industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For European Metals Holdings digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. European Metals Holdings 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.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of European Metals Holdings comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Metal Mining 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.

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Weaknesses of European Metals Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of European Metals Holdings are -

Lack of clear differentiation of European Metals Holdings products

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

Need for greater diversity

– European Metals Holdings 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.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, European Metals Holdings is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help European Metals Holdings to provide better information regarding Metal Mining products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that European Metals Holdings needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Metal Mining industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at European Metals Holdings can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as European Metals Holdings is planning to shift buying processes online.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at European Metals Holdings, in the dynamic environment of Metal Mining industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. European Metals Holdings 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, European Metals Holdings needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

European Metals Holdings has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Metal Mining industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, European Metals Holdings has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Metal Mining industry over the last five years. European Metals Holdings 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.

Skills based hiring in Metal Mining industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at European Metals Holdings 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.

High dependence on European Metals Holdings ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of European Metals Holdings still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Metal Mining industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though European Metals Holdings has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Metal Mining industry, European Metals Holdings 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.

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European Metals Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of European Metals Holdings are -

Developing new processes and practices

– European Metals Holdings can develop new processes and procedures in Metal Mining 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.

Buying journey improvements

– European Metals Holdings can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Metal Mining 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for European Metals Holdings in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Metal Mining industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Manufacturing automation

– European Metals Holdings can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Metal Mining 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, European Metals Holdings 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 European Metals Holdings to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for European Metals Holdings 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, European Metals Holdings is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. European Metals Holdings can utilize new technology in the field of Metal Mining industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Metal Mining industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. European Metals Holdings 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. European Metals Holdings 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.

Loyalty marketing

– European Metals Holdings 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects European Metals Holdings can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

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 European Metals Holdings to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Metal Mining industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. European Metals Holdings 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 European Metals Holdings has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Metal Mining industry. This can help European Metals Holdings to build a more holistic ecosystem for European Metals Holdings products in the Metal Mining industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

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Threats European Metals Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of European Metals Holdings are -

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for European Metals Holdings in Metal Mining industry. The Metal Mining 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.

Regulatory challenges

– European Metals Holdings 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 Metal Mining industry regulations.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that European Metals Holdings is facing in Metal Mining sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

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 European Metals Holdings.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, European Metals Holdings may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Metal Mining sector.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, European Metals Holdings 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 European Metals Holdings prominent markets.

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 European Metals Holdings business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– European Metals Holdings 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 Metal Mining industry.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– European Metals Holdings has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Metal Mining industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, European Metals Holdings needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Metal Mining 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.

Environmental challenges

– European Metals Holdings 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. European Metals Holdings can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Metal Mining industry.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– European Metals Holdings 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.

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 European Metals Holdings in the Metal Mining sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of European Metals Holdings Template, Example

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

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