SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Impact Minerals Ltd (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Impact Minerals Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Impact Minerals Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Impact Minerals Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Impact Minerals Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Impact Minerals 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 Impact Minerals Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Impact Minerals Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Impact Minerals 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 Impact Minerals Ltd
Strengths of Impact Minerals Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Impact Minerals Ltd are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Impact Minerals Ltd in Metal Mining industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Impact Minerals 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Impact Minerals 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.
Ability to lead change in Metal Mining
– Impact Minerals 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 Impact Minerals Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Metal Mining industry
– Impact Minerals Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Impact Minerals Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Metal Mining industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Impact Minerals Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Impact Minerals 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
- Impact Minerals 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 Impact Minerals Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Impact Minerals Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Impact Minerals Ltd in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Impact Minerals Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Impact Minerals Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Impact Minerals Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Impact Minerals Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Impact Minerals Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Impact Minerals 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 Impact Minerals Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Impact Minerals Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Impact Minerals 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.
Weaknesses of Impact Minerals Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Impact Minerals Ltd are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Impact Minerals 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. Impact Minerals Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on Impact Minerals Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Impact Minerals 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 Impact Minerals Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Impact Minerals Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Metal Mining industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Impact Minerals Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Metal Mining industry, Impact Minerals 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Impact Minerals Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Impact Minerals Ltd to provide better information regarding Metal Mining products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Impact Minerals 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 Impact Minerals Ltd lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Impact Minerals Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ less understanding of Impact Minerals Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Impact Minerals 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Impact Minerals Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Impact Minerals Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
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 Impact Minerals Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Impact Minerals Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Impact Minerals Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Impact Minerals 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. Impact Minerals 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.
Impact Minerals Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Impact Minerals Ltd are -
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 Impact Minerals 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 Impact Minerals Ltd in the Metal Mining industry. Now Impact Minerals Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Impact Minerals Ltd 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Impact Minerals 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Impact Minerals Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Metal Mining industry. This can help Impact Minerals Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Impact Minerals Ltd products in the Metal Mining industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Impact Minerals Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Impact Minerals 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Impact Minerals 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Impact Minerals Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Impact Minerals Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Metal Mining sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Impact Minerals Ltd 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 Impact Minerals Ltd to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Impact Minerals 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.
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. Impact Minerals Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Impact Minerals 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.
Threats Impact Minerals Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Impact Minerals Ltd are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Impact Minerals 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 Impact Minerals Ltd prominent markets.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Impact Minerals 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Impact Minerals 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Metal Mining industry are lowering. It can presents Impact Minerals 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.
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 Impact Minerals Ltd.
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 Impact Minerals Ltd in the Metal Mining sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Impact Minerals Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Impact Minerals 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Impact Minerals 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.
Environmental challenges
– Impact Minerals 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. Impact Minerals Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Metal Mining industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Impact Minerals 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.
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. Impact Minerals 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
– Impact Minerals 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Impact Minerals Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Impact Minerals 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 Impact Minerals 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 Impact Minerals 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 Impact Minerals 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 Impact Minerals Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.