Baraka Energy & Resources (BKP) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Oil & Gas Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Baraka Energy & Resources (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Baraka Energy & Resources is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices,
there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Baraka Energy & Resources
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Baraka Energy & Resources can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Baraka Energy & Resources, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Baraka Energy & Resources 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 Baraka Energy & Resources can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Baraka Energy & Resources
2. Improving business portfolio management of Baraka Energy & Resources
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Oil & Gas Operations sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Baraka Energy & Resources
Strengths of Baraka Energy & Resources | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Baraka Energy & Resources are -
Digital Transformation in Oil & Gas Operations industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Baraka Energy & Resources digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Baraka Energy & Resources 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Baraka Energy & Resources has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Baraka Energy & Resources 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.
Learning organization
- Baraka Energy & Resources 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 Baraka Energy & Resources is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Baraka Energy & Resources emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Oil & Gas Operations
– Baraka Energy & Resources is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Baraka Energy & Resources in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Baraka Energy & Resources
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Baraka Energy & Resources does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Baraka Energy & Resources is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Baraka Energy & Resources 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Baraka Energy & Resources 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 Operations industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Baraka Energy & Resources have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Baraka Energy & Resources is present in almost all the verticals within the Oil & Gas Operations industry. This has provided Baraka Energy & Resources 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Baraka Energy & Resources in Oil & Gas Operations industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Baraka Energy & Resources is one of the most innovative firm in Oil & Gas Operations sector.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Baraka Energy & Resources 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.
Weaknesses of Baraka Energy & Resources | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Baraka Energy & Resources are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Baraka Energy & Resources is just above the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Baraka Energy & Resources, in the dynamic environment of Oil & Gas Operations industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Baraka Energy & Resources has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Baraka Energy & Resources 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 Oil & Gas Operations industry, Baraka Energy & Resources 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Baraka Energy & Resources needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Baraka Energy & Resources products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Baraka Energy & Resources 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 Baraka Energy & Resources supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Baraka Energy & Resources is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Baraka Energy & Resources vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Baraka Energy & Resources has high operating costs in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Baraka Energy & Resources lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Baraka Energy & Resources has some of the most successful models in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Baraka Energy & Resources should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Baraka Energy & Resources, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Baraka Energy & Resources is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, but Baraka Energy & Resources needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Baraka Energy & Resources to focus more on services in the Oil & Gas Operations industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Baraka Energy & Resources Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Baraka Energy & Resources are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Baraka Energy & Resources is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Baraka Energy & Resources can utilize new technology in the field of Oil & Gas Operations industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Baraka Energy & Resources can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Baraka Energy & Resources 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 Operations industry.
Buying journey improvements
– Baraka Energy & Resources can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Baraka Energy & Resources 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 Operations industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Baraka Energy & Resources can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Baraka Energy & Resources operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Oil & Gas Operations sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Baraka Energy & Resources has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Oil & Gas Operations sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Baraka Energy & Resources to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Baraka Energy & Resources to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Baraka Energy & Resources 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Baraka Energy & Resources 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 Baraka Energy & Resources to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Baraka Energy & Resources has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Baraka Energy & Resources 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 Baraka Energy & Resources to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Baraka Energy & Resources 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Baraka Energy & Resources 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.
Threats Baraka Energy & Resources External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Baraka Energy & Resources are -
Regulatory challenges
– Baraka Energy & Resources 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 Operations industry regulations.
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. Baraka Energy & Resources 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.
Environmental challenges
– Baraka Energy & Resources 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. Baraka Energy & Resources can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Oil & Gas Operations industry.
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. Baraka Energy & Resources needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Oil & Gas Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Oil & Gas Operations industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Baraka Energy & Resources can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Baraka Energy & Resources 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 Operations sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Baraka Energy & Resources 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 Operations industry and other sectors.
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 Baraka Energy & Resources.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Baraka Energy & Resources 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.
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 Baraka Energy & Resources business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Baraka Energy & Resources is facing in Oil & Gas Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Baraka Energy & Resources
– 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 Baraka Energy & Resources.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Baraka Energy & Resources Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Baraka Energy & Resources 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 Baraka Energy & Resources 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 Baraka Energy & Resources 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 Baraka Energy & Resources 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 Baraka Energy & Resources needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.