American Patriot Oil Gas (AOW) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Oil & Gas - Integrated
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for American Patriot Oil Gas (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , American Patriot Oil Gas is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, geopolitical disruptions, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, wage bills are increasing,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of American Patriot Oil Gas
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that American Patriot Oil Gas can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the American Patriot Oil Gas, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which American Patriot Oil Gas 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 American Patriot Oil Gas can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of American Patriot Oil Gas
2. Improving business portfolio management of American Patriot Oil Gas
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Oil & Gas - Integrated sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of American Patriot Oil Gas
Strengths of American Patriot Oil Gas | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of American Patriot Oil Gas are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the American Patriot Oil Gas 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– American Patriot Oil Gas has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled American Patriot Oil Gas to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. The sustainable margins have also helped American Patriot Oil Gas to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– American Patriot Oil Gas has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled American Patriot Oil Gas to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– American Patriot Oil Gas has one of the best training and development program in Energy 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of American Patriot Oil Gas in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– American Patriot Oil Gas has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. American Patriot Oil Gas 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.
Innovation driven organization
– American Patriot Oil Gas is one of the most innovative firm in Oil & Gas - Integrated sector.
Digital Transformation in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For American Patriot Oil Gas digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. American Patriot Oil Gas 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– American Patriot Oil Gas has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – American Patriot Oil Gas staying ahead in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– American Patriot Oil Gas is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- American Patriot Oil Gas 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 American Patriot Oil Gas is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at American Patriot Oil Gas emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– American Patriot Oil Gas has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of American Patriot Oil Gas have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of American Patriot Oil Gas | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of American Patriot Oil Gas are -
Skills based hiring in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at American Patriot Oil Gas 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of American Patriot Oil Gas products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, American Patriot Oil Gas needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, American Patriot Oil Gas has high operating costs in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract American Patriot Oil Gas lucrative customers.
Employees’ less understanding of American Patriot Oil Gas strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of American Patriot Oil Gas 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, American Patriot Oil Gas has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry over the last five years. American Patriot Oil Gas 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 American Patriot Oil Gas supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, American Patriot Oil Gas is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left American Patriot Oil Gas vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of American Patriot Oil Gas is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry, but American Patriot Oil Gas needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help American Patriot Oil Gas to focus more on services in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of American Patriot Oil Gas, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, American Patriot Oil Gas 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.
Need for greater diversity
– American Patriot Oil Gas 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
American Patriot Oil Gas has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
American Patriot Oil Gas Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of American Patriot Oil Gas are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, American Patriot Oil Gas can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that American Patriot Oil Gas operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Oil & Gas - Integrated sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for American Patriot Oil Gas 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.
Buying journey improvements
– American Patriot Oil Gas can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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 American Patriot Oil Gas to increase its market reach. American Patriot Oil Gas 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, American Patriot Oil Gas 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– American Patriot Oil Gas 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. American Patriot Oil Gas 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. American Patriot Oil Gas 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for American Patriot Oil Gas in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– American Patriot Oil Gas has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Oil & Gas - Integrated sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled American Patriot Oil Gas to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help American Patriot Oil Gas to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of American Patriot Oil Gas has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. This can help American Patriot Oil Gas to build a more holistic ecosystem for American Patriot Oil Gas products in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– American Patriot Oil Gas can develop new processes and procedures in Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at American Patriot Oil Gas 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 Oil & Gas - Integrated industry.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, American Patriot Oil Gas is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. American Patriot Oil Gas can utilize new technology in the field of Oil & Gas - Integrated industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats American Patriot Oil Gas External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of American Patriot Oil Gas are -
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 American Patriot Oil Gas in the Oil & Gas - Integrated sector and impact the bottomline 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. American Patriot Oil Gas 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, American Patriot Oil Gas may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Oil & Gas - Integrated sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. American Patriot Oil Gas can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Oil & Gas - Integrated industry are lowering. It can presents American Patriot Oil Gas with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Oil & Gas - Integrated sector.
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.
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 American Patriot Oil Gas business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on American Patriot Oil Gas 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 Oil & Gas - Integrated industry and other sectors.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, American Patriot Oil Gas 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 American Patriot Oil Gas prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– American Patriot Oil Gas 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 Oil & Gas - Integrated industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that American Patriot Oil Gas is facing in Oil & Gas - Integrated sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 American Patriot Oil Gas.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of American Patriot Oil Gas Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at American Patriot Oil Gas 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 American Patriot Oil Gas 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 American Patriot Oil Gas 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 American Patriot Oil Gas 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 American Patriot Oil Gas needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.