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 – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, 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 -

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Gold & Silver industry

– Black Cat Syndicate has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Black Cat Syndicate to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Gold & Silver industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Black Cat Syndicate to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

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.

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.

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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Black Cat Syndicate is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver 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.

Organizational Resilience of Black Cat Syndicate

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Black Cat Syndicate does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Innovation driven organization

– Black Cat Syndicate is one of the most innovative firm in Gold & Silver sector.

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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Black Cat Syndicate has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Gold & Silver industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Black Cat Syndicate have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

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.

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.

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.

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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 -

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Black Cat Syndicate, in the dynamic environment of Gold & Silver industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Black Cat Syndicate has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Gold & Silver industry, Black Cat Syndicate 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, Black Cat Syndicate needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

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.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Black Cat Syndicate has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Gold & Silver industry over the last five years. Black Cat Syndicate 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.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Black Cat Syndicate, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Gold & Silver 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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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 -

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.

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.

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.

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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Black Cat Syndicate has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Gold & Silver industry. This can help Black Cat Syndicate to build a more holistic ecosystem for Black Cat Syndicate products in the Gold & Silver industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Black Cat Syndicate can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Black Cat Syndicate operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Gold & Silver sector.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Gold & Silver industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Black Cat Syndicate can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

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.

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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Black Cat Syndicate has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Gold & Silver sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Black Cat Syndicate to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Black Cat Syndicate to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Black Cat Syndicate 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.

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.

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.

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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 -

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Gold & Silver industry are lowering. It can presents Black Cat Syndicate with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Gold & Silver sector.

Increasing wage structure of Black Cat Syndicate

– 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 Black Cat Syndicate.

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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

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

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.

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.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Black Cat Syndicate in Gold & Silver industry. The Gold & Silver 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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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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