Mangalore (MRPL) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Oil & Gas Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Mangalore (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Mangalore is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Mangalore can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Mangalore, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Mangalore 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 Mangalore can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Mangalore
2. Improving business portfolio management of Mangalore
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Oil & Gas Operations sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Mangalore
Strengths of Mangalore | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Mangalore are -
Analytics focus
– Mangalore 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 Oil & Gas Operations industry. The technology infrastructure of India 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.
Ability to lead change in Oil & Gas Operations
– Mangalore is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in India. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in India but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Mangalore in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Mangalore has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Oil & Gas Operations industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Mangalore have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Mangalore comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Oil & Gas Operations industry
– Mangalore has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Mangalore to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Mangalore to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Mangalore
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Mangalore does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Oil & Gas Operations industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Mangalore digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Mangalore 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Mangalore has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Mangalore staying ahead in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Mangalore is one of the most innovative firm in Oil & Gas Operations sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Oil & Gas Operations industry
– Mangalore is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Mangalore has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Mangalore 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Mangalore 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.
Weaknesses of Mangalore | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Mangalore are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Mangalore has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Mangalore is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, but Mangalore needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Mangalore to focus more on services in the Oil & Gas Operations industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of India, Mangalore needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Mangalore is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in last five years.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Mangalore has some of the most successful models in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Mangalore should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Mangalore is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Mangalore to provide better information regarding Oil & Gas Operations products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Mangalore, in the dynamic environment of Oil & Gas Operations industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Mangalore has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Mangalore, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Oil & Gas Operations industry. 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Mangalore has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
High dependence on Mangalore ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Mangalore still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Oil & Gas Operations industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Mangalore has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Mangalore needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Oil & Gas Operations industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Mangalore can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Mangalore is planning to shift buying processes online.
Mangalore Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Mangalore are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Mangalore is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Mangalore can utilize new technology in the field of Oil & Gas Operations industry 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 Mangalore 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 Mangalore to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Mangalore has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Oil & Gas Operations industry. This can help Mangalore to build a more holistic ecosystem for Mangalore products in the Oil & Gas Operations industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Mangalore in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Mangalore can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Mangalore operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Oil & Gas Operations sector.
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 Mangalore 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Mangalore 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Mangalore 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Oil & Gas Operations industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Mangalore 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. Mangalore 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Mangalore 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 Mangalore to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Mangalore can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Oil & Gas Operations industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Mangalore can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Mangalore has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Oil & Gas Operations sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Mangalore to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Mangalore to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Mangalore External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Mangalore are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Oil & Gas Operations industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Mangalore can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Mangalore in the Oil & Gas Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Mangalore 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Mangalore has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Mangalore needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Increasing wage structure of Mangalore
– 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 Mangalore.
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 Mangalore business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Mangalore may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Oil & Gas Operations sector.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Mangalore 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 Oil & Gas Operations industry regulations.
Environmental challenges
– Mangalore 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. Mangalore can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Oil & Gas Operations industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Mangalore is facing in Oil & Gas Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Mangalore 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, Mangalore 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 Mangalore prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Mangalore Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Mangalore 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 Mangalore 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 Mangalore 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 Mangalore 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 Mangalore needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.