Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Metal Mining sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd
Strengths of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd are -
Ability to lead change in Metal Mining
– Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry in India. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Metal Mining industry in India but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Metal Mining industry
– Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Metal Mining industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Metal Mining industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Metal Mining industry. This has provided Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd 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.
Organizational Resilience of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management in the Metal Mining industry
– Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Metal Mining industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd is just above the Metal Mining 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd has high operating costs in the Metal Mining industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd lucrative customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Metal Mining industry, Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Metal Mining industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring in Metal Mining industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Metal Mining industry, but Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd to focus more on services in the Metal Mining industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Metal Mining sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Manufacturing automation
– Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd to increase its market reach. Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Metal Mining industry. This can help Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd products in the Metal Mining industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Metal Mining industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
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. Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd 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. Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd 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 Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd 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 Metal Mining industry.
Threats Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd are -
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 Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Metal Mining industry are lowering. It can presents Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Metal Mining sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Metal Mining industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Metal Mining industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Metal Mining 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd prominent markets.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Metal Mining industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Metal Mining sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd 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.
Increasing wage structure of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Shirpur Gold Refinery Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.