SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Castillo Copper Ltd (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Castillo Copper Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Castillo Copper Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Castillo Copper Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Castillo Copper Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Castillo Copper 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 Castillo Copper Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Castillo Copper Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Castillo Copper 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 Castillo Copper Ltd
Strengths of Castillo Copper Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Castillo Copper Ltd are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Castillo Copper 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Metal Mining industry
– Castillo Copper Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Castillo Copper Ltd is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Metal Mining industry. The technology infrastructure of Australia is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Castillo Copper 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
– Castillo Copper 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 Castillo Copper Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Castillo Copper Ltd in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Castillo Copper Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Castillo Copper Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Castillo Copper 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Castillo Copper Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Metal Mining sector.
Learning organization
- Castillo Copper 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 Castillo Copper Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Castillo Copper Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Castillo Copper Ltd has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Metal Mining industry
– Castillo Copper Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Castillo Copper Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Metal Mining industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Castillo Copper Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Castillo Copper Ltd in Metal Mining industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Castillo Copper Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Castillo Copper Ltd are -
Employees’ less understanding of Castillo Copper Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Castillo Copper 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Castillo Copper Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Metal Mining industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Castillo Copper Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Castillo Copper Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Castillo Copper Ltd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Metal Mining industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Castillo Copper Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Castillo Copper 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Castillo Copper 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. Castillo Copper Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Castillo Copper Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Metal Mining industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Castillo Copper Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Castillo Copper Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Metal Mining industry, but Castillo Copper Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Castillo Copper Ltd to focus more on services in the Metal Mining industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Need for greater diversity
– Castillo Copper Ltd has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
High dependence on Castillo Copper Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Castillo Copper 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 Castillo Copper Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Castillo Copper 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 Castillo Copper Ltd lucrative 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 Castillo Copper Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Castillo Copper Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Castillo Copper Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Castillo Copper Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Castillo Copper Ltd are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Castillo Copper 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Metal Mining industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Castillo Copper Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Castillo Copper 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.
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 Castillo Copper 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Castillo Copper 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Castillo Copper Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Metal Mining industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Castillo Copper 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Castillo Copper 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Castillo Copper Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Castillo Copper Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Metal Mining industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Castillo Copper Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Metal Mining industry. This can help Castillo Copper Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Castillo Copper Ltd products in the Metal Mining industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Castillo Copper Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Metal Mining sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Castillo Copper Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Castillo Copper Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Castillo Copper Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Castillo Copper Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Metal Mining sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Castillo Copper Ltd to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Castillo Copper Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Castillo Copper Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Castillo Copper Ltd are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Castillo Copper 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.
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 Castillo Copper Ltd.
Regulatory challenges
– Castillo Copper 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Castillo Copper Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Metal Mining industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Castillo Copper Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Metal Mining 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.
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 Castillo Copper Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Castillo Copper 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.
Increasing wage structure of Castillo Copper Ltd
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Castillo Copper Ltd.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Castillo Copper 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.
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. Castillo Copper 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.
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. Castillo Copper Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Metal Mining industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Castillo Copper 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 Castillo Copper Ltd prominent markets.
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 Castillo Copper 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. Castillo Copper Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Castillo Copper Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Castillo Copper 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 Castillo Copper 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 Castillo Copper 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 Castillo Copper 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 Castillo Copper Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.