SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Cubex Tubings Ltd (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Cubex Tubings Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Cubex Tubings Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Cubex Tubings Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cubex Tubings Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cubex Tubings 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 Cubex Tubings Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Cubex Tubings Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cubex Tubings 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 Cubex Tubings Ltd
Strengths of Cubex Tubings Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cubex Tubings Ltd are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Metal Mining industry
– Cubex Tubings Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Cubex Tubings Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Metal Mining industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Cubex Tubings Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Cubex Tubings Ltd 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Cubex Tubings Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Cubex Tubings 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Cubex Tubings Ltd in Metal Mining industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Metal Mining
– Cubex Tubings 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 Cubex Tubings Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Cubex Tubings Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Cubex Tubings Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Cubex Tubings 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 Cubex Tubings Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Cubex Tubings Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Cubex Tubings 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 Cubex Tubings Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Cubex Tubings Ltd is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Cubex Tubings Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Metal Mining 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Cubex Tubings Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Cubex Tubings 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.
Organizational Resilience of Cubex Tubings Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Cubex Tubings Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of Cubex Tubings Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Cubex Tubings Ltd are -
Skills based hiring in Metal Mining industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Cubex Tubings 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Cubex Tubings 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of India, Cubex Tubings Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ less understanding of Cubex Tubings Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Cubex Tubings 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Metal Mining industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in India, Cubex Tubings Ltd 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 Metal Mining industry.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Cubex Tubings 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Cubex Tubings Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Metal Mining 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Cubex Tubings 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Cubex Tubings 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Metal Mining industry, Cubex Tubings 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.
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 Cubex Tubings Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Cubex Tubings Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Cubex Tubings Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Cubex Tubings Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Cubex Tubings Ltd are -
Buying journey improvements
– Cubex Tubings Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Metal Mining 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Cubex Tubings Ltd to increase its market reach. Cubex Tubings 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.
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 Cubex Tubings 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Cubex Tubings 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 Cubex Tubings Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Cubex Tubings 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.
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. Cubex Tubings 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. Cubex Tubings 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.
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 Cubex Tubings Ltd in the Metal Mining industry. Now Cubex Tubings Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Cubex Tubings 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.
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. Cubex Tubings Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Cubex Tubings 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 Cubex Tubings Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Cubex Tubings Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Cubex Tubings 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Cubex Tubings 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Cubex Tubings Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Metal Mining industry. This can help Cubex Tubings Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Cubex Tubings Ltd products in the Metal Mining industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Cubex Tubings Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Cubex Tubings Ltd are -
Increasing wage structure of Cubex Tubings 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 Cubex Tubings Ltd.
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 Cubex Tubings Ltd.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Metal Mining industry are lowering. It can presents Cubex Tubings 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.
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 Cubex Tubings Ltd in the Metal Mining sector and impact the bottomline 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. Cubex Tubings 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, Cubex Tubings 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 Cubex Tubings 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Cubex Tubings Ltd is facing in Metal Mining sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Cubex Tubings Ltd 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 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.
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. Cubex Tubings Ltd 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Cubex Tubings 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Cubex Tubings 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Cubex Tubings Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Cubex Tubings 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 Cubex Tubings 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 Cubex Tubings 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 Cubex Tubings 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 Cubex Tubings Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
