Norwest Energy NL (NWE) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Oil & Gas Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Norwest Energy NL (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Norwest Energy NL is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Norwest Energy NL
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Norwest Energy NL can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Norwest Energy NL, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Norwest Energy NL 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 Norwest Energy NL can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Norwest Energy NL
2. Improving business portfolio management of Norwest Energy NL
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 Norwest Energy NL
Strengths of Norwest Energy NL | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Norwest Energy NL are -
Organizational Resilience of Norwest Energy NL
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Norwest Energy NL does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management in the Oil & Gas Operations industry
– Norwest Energy NL is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- Norwest Energy NL 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 Norwest Energy NL is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Norwest Energy NL emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Oil & Gas Operations
– Norwest Energy NL 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 Norwest Energy NL in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Norwest Energy NL has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Norwest Energy NL to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Norwest Energy NL 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 Norwest Energy NL have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Norwest Energy NL has one of the best training and development program in Energy industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Norwest Energy NL is one of the most innovative firm in Oil & Gas Operations sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Norwest Energy NL in Oil & Gas Operations industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Norwest Energy NL 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Norwest Energy NL has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Norwest Energy NL 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Norwest Energy NL in the Energy sector have low bargaining power. Norwest Energy NL has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Norwest Energy NL to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Norwest Energy NL | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Norwest Energy NL are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Norwest Energy NL has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Oil & Gas Operations industry using digital technology.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Norwest Energy NL, 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Norwest Energy NL 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. Norwest Energy NL should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Norwest Energy NL 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Norwest Energy NL is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in last five years.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Norwest Energy NL needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Oil & Gas Operations industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Norwest Energy NL can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Norwest Energy NL is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Norwest Energy NL 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Norwest Energy NL, in the dynamic environment of Oil & Gas Operations industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Norwest Energy NL has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring in Oil & Gas Operations industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Norwest Energy NL 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.
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 Norwest Energy NL supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Norwest Energy NL is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Norwest Energy NL vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Norwest Energy NL is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, but Norwest Energy NL needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Norwest Energy NL to focus more on services in the Oil & Gas Operations industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Norwest Energy NL Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Norwest Energy NL are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Oil & Gas Operations industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Norwest Energy NL can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Norwest Energy NL can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
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. Norwest Energy NL can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Norwest Energy NL 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Norwest Energy NL can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Norwest Energy NL operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Oil & Gas Operations sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Norwest Energy NL 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 Norwest Energy NL to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Norwest Energy NL 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Norwest Energy NL 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 Norwest Energy NL to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Norwest Energy NL can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Norwest Energy NL 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Norwest Energy NL 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 Norwest Energy NL to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Norwest Energy NL 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, Norwest Energy NL 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Norwest Energy NL 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Norwest Energy NL has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Oil & Gas Operations industry. This can help Norwest Energy NL to build a more holistic ecosystem for Norwest Energy NL products in the Oil & Gas Operations industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Norwest Energy NL External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Norwest Energy NL are -
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 Norwest Energy NL business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Norwest Energy NL 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Norwest Energy NL 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Norwest Energy NL has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Norwest Energy NL needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
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.
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 Norwest Energy NL.
Environmental challenges
– Norwest Energy NL 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. Norwest Energy NL can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Oil & Gas Operations industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Norwest Energy NL 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.
Increasing wage structure of Norwest Energy NL
– 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 Norwest Energy NL.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Norwest Energy NL 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.
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. Norwest Energy NL can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Norwest Energy NL 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 Norwest Energy NL is facing in Oil & Gas Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Norwest Energy NL Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Norwest Energy NL 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 Norwest Energy NL 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 Norwest Energy NL 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 Norwest Energy NL 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 Norwest Energy NL needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.