SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ironbark Zinc Ltd (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ironbark Zinc Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Ironbark Zinc Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ironbark Zinc Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ironbark Zinc Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ironbark Zinc 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 Ironbark Zinc Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ironbark Zinc Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ironbark Zinc Ltd
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 Ironbark Zinc Ltd
Strengths of Ironbark Zinc Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ironbark Zinc Ltd are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Ironbark Zinc Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Ironbark Zinc 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ironbark Zinc Ltd is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining 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.
Learning organization
- Ironbark Zinc 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 Ironbark Zinc Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ironbark Zinc Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Ironbark Zinc Ltd in Metal Mining industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ironbark Zinc Ltd 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.
Organizational Resilience of Ironbark Zinc Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Ironbark Zinc Ltd 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
– Ironbark Zinc Ltd 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 Ironbark Zinc Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the Metal Mining industry
– Ironbark Zinc 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ironbark Zinc Ltd in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Ironbark Zinc Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ironbark Zinc Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Ironbark Zinc Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Ironbark Zinc 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Metal Mining industry
– Ironbark Zinc Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ironbark Zinc Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Metal Mining industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ironbark Zinc Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Ironbark Zinc 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.
Weaknesses of Ironbark Zinc Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ironbark Zinc Ltd are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Ironbark Zinc 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Ironbark Zinc Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Ironbark Zinc Ltd don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Ironbark Zinc Ltd 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 Ironbark Zinc Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ironbark Zinc Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Ironbark Zinc 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ironbark Zinc Ltd 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. Ironbark Zinc Ltd 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.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Ironbark Zinc Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Ironbark Zinc Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Ironbark Zinc Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High dependence on Ironbark Zinc Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Ironbark Zinc Ltd 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 Ironbark Zinc Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Ironbark Zinc Ltd is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Metal Mining industry in last five years.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ironbark Zinc Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ironbark Zinc Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring in Metal Mining industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ironbark Zinc 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Ironbark Zinc 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 Ironbark Zinc Ltd lucrative customers.
Ironbark Zinc Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ironbark Zinc Ltd are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ironbark Zinc Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ironbark Zinc 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 Ironbark Zinc Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ironbark Zinc Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ironbark Zinc 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.
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. Ironbark Zinc 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. Ironbark Zinc 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Ironbark Zinc 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.
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 Ironbark Zinc Ltd 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Metal Mining industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Ironbark Zinc Ltd in the Metal Mining industry. Now Ironbark Zinc Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Ironbark Zinc 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ironbark Zinc 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 Ironbark Zinc Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ironbark Zinc Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Metal Mining industry. This can help Ironbark Zinc Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ironbark Zinc Ltd products in the Metal Mining industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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. Ironbark Zinc Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Ironbark Zinc Ltd to increase its market reach. Ironbark Zinc 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Ironbark Zinc 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.
Threats Ironbark Zinc Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ironbark Zinc Ltd are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ironbark Zinc 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 Ironbark Zinc Ltd prominent markets.
Regulatory challenges
– Ironbark Zinc 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Ironbark Zinc 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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ironbark Zinc 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.
Environmental challenges
– Ironbark Zinc Ltd 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. Ironbark Zinc Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Metal Mining industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Metal Mining industry are lowering. It can presents Ironbark Zinc 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ironbark Zinc 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.
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. Ironbark Zinc Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Ironbark Zinc Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Metal Mining industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Ironbark Zinc Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ironbark Zinc Ltd is facing in Metal Mining sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ironbark Zinc Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ironbark Zinc 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 Ironbark Zinc 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 Ironbark Zinc 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 Ironbark Zinc 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 Ironbark Zinc Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.