Black Cat Syndicate (BC8) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Black Cat Syndicate (Australia)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Black Cat Syndicate is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Black Cat Syndicate

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Black Cat Syndicate can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Black Cat Syndicate, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Black Cat Syndicate 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Black Cat Syndicate can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Black Cat Syndicate
2. Improving business portfolio management of Black Cat Syndicate
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Gold & Silver sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Black Cat Syndicate

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Strengths of Black Cat Syndicate | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Black Cat Syndicate are -

Strong track record of project management in the Gold & Silver industry

– Black Cat Syndicate is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Digital Transformation in Gold & Silver industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Black Cat Syndicate digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Black Cat Syndicate 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Black Cat Syndicate 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 Gold & Silver

– Black Cat Syndicate is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Gold & Silver industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Black Cat Syndicate in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Black Cat Syndicate 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.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Black Cat Syndicate comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Gold & Silver 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)

– Black Cat Syndicate has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Black Cat Syndicate staying ahead in the Gold & Silver industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Training and development

– Black Cat Syndicate 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.

Learning organization

- Black Cat Syndicate 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 Black Cat Syndicate is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Black Cat Syndicate emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Black Cat Syndicate in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Black Cat Syndicate has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Black Cat Syndicate to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Diverse revenue streams

– Black Cat Syndicate is present in almost all the verticals within the Gold & Silver industry. This has provided Black Cat Syndicate 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.

Analytics focus

– Black Cat Syndicate 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 Gold & Silver 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.

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Weaknesses of Black Cat Syndicate | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Black Cat Syndicate are -

Products dominated business model

– Even though Black Cat Syndicate has some of the most successful models in the Gold & Silver industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Black Cat Syndicate should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Black Cat Syndicate 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.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Black Cat Syndicate is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Gold & Silver industry in last five years.

Employees’ less understanding of Black Cat Syndicate strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Black Cat Syndicate 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.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Black Cat Syndicate is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Gold & Silver industry, but Black Cat Syndicate needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Black Cat Syndicate to focus more on services in the Gold & Silver industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Need for greater diversity

– Black Cat Syndicate 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Black Cat Syndicate needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Gold & Silver industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Black Cat Syndicate can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Black Cat Syndicate is planning to shift buying processes online.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Black Cat Syndicate is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Black Cat Syndicate to provide better information regarding Gold & Silver products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Black Cat Syndicate is just above the Gold & Silver 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.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Gold & Silver industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Black Cat Syndicate 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 Gold & Silver industry.

Skills based hiring in Gold & Silver industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Black Cat Syndicate has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.

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Black Cat Syndicate Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Black Cat Syndicate 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 Black Cat Syndicate 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.

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. Black Cat Syndicate 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, Black Cat Syndicate is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Black Cat Syndicate can utilize new technology in the field of Gold & Silver industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Buying journey improvements

– Black Cat Syndicate can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Gold & Silver 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Black Cat Syndicate can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Gold & Silver industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Black Cat Syndicate in the Gold & Silver industry. Now Black Cat Syndicate can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Developing new processes and practices

– Black Cat Syndicate can develop new processes and procedures in Gold & Silver industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Black Cat Syndicate 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 Gold & Silver industry.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Black Cat Syndicate 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 Black Cat Syndicate to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Manufacturing automation

– Black Cat Syndicate can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Gold & Silver 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Black Cat Syndicate 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Black Cat Syndicate to increase its market reach. Black Cat Syndicate will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Black Cat Syndicate 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 Black Cat Syndicate to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

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Threats Black Cat Syndicate External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Black Cat Syndicate are -

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Black Cat Syndicate 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 Black Cat Syndicate prominent markets.

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. Black Cat Syndicate needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Gold & Silver industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Black Cat Syndicate 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 Gold & Silver industry and other sectors.

Environmental challenges

– Black Cat Syndicate 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. Black Cat Syndicate can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Gold & Silver industry.

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 Black Cat Syndicate.

Regulatory challenges

– Black Cat Syndicate 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 Gold & Silver industry regulations.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Black Cat Syndicate has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Gold & Silver industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Black Cat Syndicate needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Gold & Silver 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.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Black Cat Syndicate may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Gold & Silver sector.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Black Cat Syndicate 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.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Black Cat Syndicate is facing in Gold & Silver sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Aging population

– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.

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 Black Cat Syndicate in the Gold & Silver sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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 Black Cat Syndicate business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Black Cat Syndicate Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Black Cat Syndicate 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 Black Cat Syndicate 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 Black Cat Syndicate 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 Black Cat Syndicate 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 Black Cat Syndicate needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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