Santa Fe Minerals (SFM) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Construction Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Santa Fe Minerals (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Santa Fe Minerals is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization,
increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Santa Fe Minerals
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Santa Fe Minerals can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Santa Fe Minerals, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Santa Fe Minerals 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 Santa Fe Minerals can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Santa Fe Minerals
2. Improving business portfolio management of Santa Fe Minerals
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Construction Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Santa Fe Minerals
Strengths of Santa Fe Minerals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Santa Fe Minerals are -
High brand equity
– Santa Fe Minerals has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Santa Fe Minerals to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Santa Fe Minerals has one of the best training and development program in Capital Goods 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Construction Services industry
– Santa Fe Minerals 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
– Santa Fe Minerals 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 Construction Services 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Santa Fe Minerals has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Construction Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Santa Fe Minerals have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Santa Fe Minerals has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Santa Fe Minerals 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Santa Fe Minerals comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Construction Services 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Construction Services industry
– Santa Fe Minerals has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Santa Fe Minerals to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Construction Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Santa Fe Minerals to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Construction Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Santa Fe Minerals digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Santa Fe Minerals 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
- Santa Fe Minerals 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 Santa Fe Minerals is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Santa Fe Minerals emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Santa Fe Minerals has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Santa Fe Minerals staying ahead in the Construction Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Santa Fe Minerals
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Santa Fe Minerals does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of Santa Fe Minerals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Santa Fe Minerals are -
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 Santa Fe Minerals supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Santa Fe Minerals is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Santa Fe Minerals vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Santa Fe Minerals has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Construction Services industry over the last five years. Santa Fe Minerals 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Santa Fe Minerals, in the dynamic environment of Construction Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Santa Fe Minerals has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Santa Fe Minerals is one of the leading players in the Construction Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Construction Services industry in last five years.
Skills based hiring in Construction Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Santa Fe Minerals 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Santa Fe Minerals, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Construction Services 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 Santa Fe Minerals needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Construction Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Santa Fe Minerals can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Santa Fe Minerals is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Santa Fe Minerals products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Santa Fe Minerals needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Santa Fe Minerals is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Santa Fe Minerals to provide better information regarding Construction Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Construction Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Santa Fe Minerals 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 Construction Services industry.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Santa Fe Minerals has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Construction Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Santa Fe Minerals Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Santa Fe Minerals are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Construction Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Santa Fe Minerals in the Construction Services industry. Now Santa Fe Minerals can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Santa Fe Minerals in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Construction Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Santa Fe Minerals 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Santa Fe Minerals can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Santa Fe Minerals operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Construction Services sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Santa Fe Minerals is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Santa Fe Minerals can utilize new technology in the field of Construction Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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 Santa Fe Minerals 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Santa Fe Minerals 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Santa Fe Minerals 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 Construction Services industry.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Santa Fe Minerals has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Construction Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Santa Fe Minerals to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Santa Fe Minerals to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Santa Fe Minerals 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.
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. Santa Fe Minerals can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Santa Fe Minerals can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Construction Services 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Santa Fe Minerals 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 Santa Fe Minerals to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Santa Fe Minerals External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Santa Fe Minerals are -
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 Santa Fe Minerals.
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. Santa Fe Minerals needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Construction Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Santa Fe Minerals 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 Construction Services industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Santa Fe Minerals 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 Construction Services industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Santa Fe Minerals 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Santa Fe Minerals 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 Construction Services industry regulations.
Environmental challenges
– Santa Fe Minerals 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. Santa Fe Minerals can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Construction Services industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Santa Fe Minerals may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Construction Services sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Santa Fe Minerals has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Construction Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Santa Fe Minerals needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Construction Services 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.
Increasing wage structure of Santa Fe Minerals
– 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 Santa Fe Minerals.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Construction Services industry are lowering. It can presents Santa Fe Minerals with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Construction Services sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Santa Fe Minerals is facing in Construction Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Santa Fe Minerals Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Santa Fe Minerals 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 Santa Fe Minerals 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 Santa Fe Minerals 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 Santa Fe Minerals 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 Santa Fe Minerals needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
