Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Strategic Minerals Corp NL is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Strategic Minerals Corp NL
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Strategic Minerals Corp NL can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Strategic Minerals Corp NL, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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 Strategic Minerals Corp NL can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Strategic Minerals Corp NL
2. Improving business portfolio management of Strategic Minerals Corp NL
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 Strategic Minerals Corp NL
Strengths of Strategic Minerals Corp NL | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Strategic Minerals Corp NL are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Strategic Minerals Corp NL comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Gold & Silver 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Strategic Minerals Corp NL in Gold & Silver industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Strategic Minerals Corp NL has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Strategic Minerals Corp NL is present in almost all the verticals within the Gold & Silver industry. This has provided Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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 Strategic Minerals Corp NL have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Strategic Minerals Corp NL is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Gold & Silver industry. The technology infrastructure of Australia is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
High brand equity
– Strategic Minerals Corp NL has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Strategic Minerals Corp NL to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Strategic Minerals Corp NL has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Strategic Minerals Corp NL staying ahead in the Gold & Silver industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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 Strategic Minerals Corp NL is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Strategic Minerals Corp NL emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Strategic Minerals Corp NL
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Strategic Minerals Corp NL does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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 Strategic Minerals Corp NL | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Strategic Minerals Corp NL are -
High dependence on Strategic Minerals Corp NL ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Strategic Minerals Corp NL still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Gold & Silver industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Strategic Minerals Corp NL has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Gold & Silver industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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.
Skills based hiring in Gold & Silver industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Strategic Minerals Corp NL, in the dynamic environment of Gold & Silver industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Strategic Minerals Corp NL has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Need for greater diversity
– Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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 Strategic Minerals Corp NL can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Strategic Minerals Corp NL is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Strategic Minerals Corp NL products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Strategic Minerals Corp NL needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Strategic Minerals Corp NL needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Strategic Minerals Corp NL has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Gold & Silver industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Gold & Silver industry, Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Strategic Minerals Corp NL is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Gold & Silver industry in last five years.
Strategic Minerals Corp NL Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Strategic Minerals Corp NL are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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
– Strategic Minerals Corp NL has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Gold & Silver sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Strategic Minerals Corp NL to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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, Strategic Minerals Corp NL can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Strategic Minerals Corp NL operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Gold & Silver sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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, Strategic Minerals Corp NL is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Strategic Minerals Corp NL can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Developing new processes and practices
– Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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 Strategic Minerals Corp NL to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Manufacturing automation
– Strategic Minerals Corp NL can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Gold & Silver sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Strategic Minerals Corp NL can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Gold & Silver industry.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Strategic Minerals Corp NL has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Gold & Silver industry. This can help Strategic Minerals Corp NL to build a more holistic ecosystem for Strategic Minerals Corp NL products in the Gold & Silver industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Strategic Minerals Corp NL External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Strategic Minerals Corp NL are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Gold & Silver industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Strategic Minerals Corp NL can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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 Strategic Minerals Corp NL prominent markets.
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.
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 Strategic Minerals Corp NL in the Gold & Silver sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Strategic Minerals Corp NL business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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 Gold & Silver industry regulations.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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, Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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 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. Strategic Minerals Corp NL needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Gold & Silver industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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 Gold & Silver industry.
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 Strategic Minerals Corp NL.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Strategic Minerals Corp NL Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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 Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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 Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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 Strategic Minerals Corp NL 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 Strategic Minerals Corp NL needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.