Gujarat Gas Co. (GGAS) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Natural Gas Utilities
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Gujarat Gas Co. (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Gujarat Gas Co. is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
technology disruption, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Gujarat Gas Co. can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Gujarat Gas Co., and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Gujarat Gas Co. 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 Gujarat Gas Co. can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Gujarat Gas Co.
2. Improving business portfolio management of Gujarat Gas Co.
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Natural Gas Utilities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Gujarat Gas Co.
Strengths of Gujarat Gas Co. | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Gujarat Gas Co. are -
Organizational Resilience of Gujarat Gas Co.
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Gujarat Gas Co. does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Natural Gas Utilities industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Gujarat Gas Co. digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Gujarat Gas Co. 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Gujarat Gas Co. is one of the leading players in the Natural Gas Utilities industry in India. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in India. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Learning organization
- Gujarat Gas Co. 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 Gujarat Gas Co. is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Gujarat Gas Co. emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Gujarat Gas Co. in Natural Gas Utilities industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Natural Gas Utilities industry
– Gujarat Gas Co. has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Gujarat Gas Co. to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Natural Gas Utilities industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Gujarat Gas Co. to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Gujarat Gas Co. is present in almost all the verticals within the Natural Gas Utilities industry. This has provided Gujarat Gas Co. 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Gujarat Gas Co. in the Utilities sector have low bargaining power. Gujarat Gas Co. has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Gujarat Gas Co. to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Gujarat Gas Co. has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Natural Gas Utilities industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Gujarat Gas Co. have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the Natural Gas Utilities industry
– Gujarat Gas Co. is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Gujarat Gas Co. 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.
High brand equity
– Gujarat Gas Co. has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Gujarat Gas Co. to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of Gujarat Gas Co. | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Gujarat Gas Co. are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Gujarat Gas Co. needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Natural Gas Utilities industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Gujarat Gas Co. can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Gujarat Gas Co. is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Gujarat Gas Co. has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Natural Gas Utilities 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 Natural Gas Utilities industry, Gujarat Gas Co. needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Gujarat Gas Co. is just above the Natural Gas Utilities 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 Gujarat Gas Co. products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Gujarat Gas Co. needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Gujarat Gas Co. is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Gujarat Gas Co. to provide better information regarding Natural Gas Utilities products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Gujarat Gas Co. is one of the leading players in the Natural Gas Utilities industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Natural Gas Utilities industry in last five years.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Gujarat Gas Co., it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Natural Gas Utilities 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of India, Gujarat Gas Co. needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Gujarat Gas Co. 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Gujarat Gas Co. 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.
Gujarat Gas Co. Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Gujarat Gas Co. are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Gujarat Gas Co. to increase its market reach. Gujarat Gas Co. 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Gujarat Gas Co. can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Natural Gas Utilities industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Gujarat Gas Co. 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. Gujarat Gas Co. 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Gujarat Gas Co. 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 Natural Gas Utilities industry.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Gujarat Gas Co. 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 Gujarat Gas Co. to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Gujarat Gas Co. can develop new processes and procedures in Natural Gas Utilities 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Gujarat Gas Co. 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Gujarat Gas Co. 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Gujarat Gas Co. has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Natural Gas Utilities sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Gujarat Gas Co. to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Gujarat Gas Co. to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Gujarat Gas Co. can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Gujarat Gas Co. operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Natural Gas Utilities sector.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Natural Gas Utilities industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Gujarat Gas Co. in the Natural Gas Utilities industry. Now Gujarat Gas Co. can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Manufacturing automation
– Gujarat Gas Co. can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Natural Gas Utilities 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.
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. Gujarat Gas Co. can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Gujarat Gas Co. External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Gujarat Gas Co. are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Gujarat Gas Co. 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Gujarat Gas Co. 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 Natural Gas Utilities industry and other sectors.
Increasing wage structure of Gujarat Gas Co.
– 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 Gujarat Gas Co..
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. Gujarat Gas Co. 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, Gujarat Gas Co. 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 Gujarat Gas Co. prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Gujarat Gas Co. may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Natural Gas Utilities sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Gujarat Gas Co. 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 Natural Gas Utilities industry regulations.
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 Gujarat Gas Co. business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Gujarat Gas Co. 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. Gujarat Gas Co. can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Natural Gas Utilities industry.
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.
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. Gujarat Gas Co. needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Natural Gas Utilities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Natural Gas Utilities industry are lowering. It can presents Gujarat Gas Co. with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Natural Gas Utilities sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Gujarat Gas Co. has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Natural Gas Utilities industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Gujarat Gas Co. needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Natural Gas Utilities 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Gujarat Gas Co. Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Gujarat Gas Co. 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 Gujarat Gas Co. 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 Gujarat Gas Co. 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 Gujarat Gas Co. 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 Gujarat Gas Co. needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.