Lapidot Hel L (LPHLp) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Oil & Gas - Integrated
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Lapidot Hel L (Israel)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Lapidot Hel L is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Lapidot Hel L can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Lapidot Hel L, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Lapidot Hel L 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 Lapidot Hel L can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Lapidot Hel L
2. Improving business portfolio management of Lapidot Hel L
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Israel
4. Making a Oil & Gas - Integrated sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Lapidot Hel L
Strengths of Lapidot Hel L | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Lapidot Hel L are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Lapidot Hel L in the Energy sector have low bargaining power. Lapidot Hel L has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Lapidot Hel L to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Lapidot Hel L in Oil & Gas - Integrated 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 Lapidot Hel L 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Lapidot Hel L 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 Lapidot Hel L have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Lapidot Hel L comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Lapidot Hel L has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Lapidot Hel L 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.
Learning organization
- Lapidot Hel L 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 Lapidot Hel L is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Lapidot Hel L emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Lapidot Hel L is one of the most innovative firm in Oil & Gas - Integrated sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– Lapidot Hel L is present in almost all the verticals within the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. This has provided Lapidot Hel L 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.
Training and development
– Lapidot Hel L 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Lapidot Hel L has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Lapidot Hel L 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Lapidot Hel L 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.
Weaknesses of Lapidot Hel L | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Lapidot Hel L are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Lapidot Hel L is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Lapidot Hel L to provide better information regarding Oil & Gas - Integrated products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
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 Lapidot Hel L supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Lapidot Hel L is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Lapidot Hel L vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High dependence on Lapidot Hel L ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Lapidot Hel L still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Lapidot Hel L has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Lapidot Hel L is just above the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Lapidot Hel L is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry in last five years.
Employees’ less understanding of Lapidot Hel L strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Lapidot Hel L 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, Lapidot Hel L 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. Lapidot Hel L 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Lapidot Hel L 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Israel, Lapidot Hel L 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 Oil & Gas - Integrated industry.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Lapidot Hel L needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Lapidot Hel L can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Lapidot Hel L is planning to shift buying processes online.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Lapidot Hel L has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry using digital technology.
Lapidot Hel L Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Lapidot Hel L are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Lapidot Hel L 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. Lapidot Hel L 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. Lapidot Hel L 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Lapidot Hel L 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 Lapidot Hel L to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Lapidot Hel L to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Lapidot Hel L can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Lapidot Hel L can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Lapidot Hel L is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Lapidot Hel L 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Lapidot Hel L 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 Lapidot Hel L to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Lapidot Hel L 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Lapidot Hel L 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Lapidot Hel L 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 Lapidot Hel L to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Lapidot Hel L in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. Now Lapidot Hel L can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Lapidot Hel L 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.
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 Lapidot Hel L 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.
Threats Lapidot Hel L External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Lapidot Hel L are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Lapidot Hel L 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.
Increasing wage structure of Lapidot Hel L
– 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 Lapidot Hel L.
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. Lapidot Hel L needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Lapidot Hel L in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. The Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
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. Lapidot Hel L can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Lapidot Hel L 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Oil & Gas - Integrated industry are lowering. It can presents Lapidot Hel L 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Lapidot Hel L 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Lapidot Hel L has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Lapidot Hel L needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Environmental challenges
– Lapidot Hel L 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. Lapidot Hel L can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry.
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 Lapidot Hel L business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Lapidot Hel L 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 Oil & Gas - Integrated industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Lapidot Hel L Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Lapidot Hel L 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 Lapidot Hel L 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 Lapidot Hel L 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 Lapidot Hel L 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 Lapidot Hel L needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
