New Age Exploration Ltd (NAE) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Coal
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for New Age Exploration Ltd (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , New Age Exploration Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of New Age Exploration Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that New Age Exploration Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the New Age Exploration Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which New Age Exploration Ltd operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of New Age Exploration Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of New Age Exploration Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of New Age Exploration Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Coal sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of New Age Exploration Ltd
Strengths of New Age Exploration Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of New Age Exploration Ltd are -
High brand equity
– New Age Exploration Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled New Age Exploration Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Coal industry
– New Age Exploration Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled New Age Exploration Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Coal industry. The sustainable margins have also helped New Age Exploration Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of New Age Exploration Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Coal 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.
Organizational Resilience of New Age Exploration Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing New Age Exploration Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– New Age Exploration Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Coal industry. This has provided New Age Exploration Ltd 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– New Age Exploration Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – New Age Exploration Ltd staying ahead in the Coal 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
– New Age Exploration Ltd is one of the leading players in the Coal 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.
Learning organization
- New Age Exploration Ltd is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at New Age Exploration Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at New Age Exploration Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– New Age Exploration Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Coal industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of New Age Exploration Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Coal
– New Age Exploration Ltd is one of the leading players in the Coal industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Coal industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled New Age Exploration Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– New Age Exploration Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. New Age Exploration Ltd 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that New Age Exploration Ltd has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Weaknesses of New Age Exploration Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of New Age Exploration Ltd are -
Lack of clear differentiation of New Age Exploration Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, New Age Exploration Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, New Age Exploration Ltd 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 New Age Exploration Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Coal industry, but New Age Exploration Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help New Age Exploration Ltd to focus more on services in the Coal industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though New Age Exploration Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Coal industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. New Age Exploration Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at New Age Exploration Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Coal industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. New Age Exploration Ltd 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 Coal industry, New Age Exploration Ltd 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that New Age Exploration Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Coal industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at New Age Exploration Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as New Age Exploration Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring in Coal industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at New Age Exploration Ltd 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of New Age Exploration Ltd is just above the Coal 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 Coal industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, New Age Exploration Ltd 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 Coal industry.
High dependence on New Age Exploration Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of New Age Exploration Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Coal industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though New Age Exploration Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
New Age Exploration Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of New Age Exploration Ltd are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Coal industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for New Age Exploration Ltd in the Coal industry. Now New Age Exploration Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, New Age Exploration Ltd 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 New Age Exploration Ltd to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 New Age Exploration Ltd to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, New Age Exploration Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that New Age Exploration Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Coal sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– New Age Exploration Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Coal sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled New Age Exploration Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help New Age Exploration Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. New Age Exploration Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– New Age Exploration Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Coal 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for New Age Exploration Ltd to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help New Age Exploration Ltd to increase its market reach. New Age Exploration Ltd 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of New Age Exploration Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Coal industry. This can help New Age Exploration Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for New Age Exploration Ltd products in the Coal industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– New Age Exploration Ltd can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for New Age Exploration Ltd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Coal industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Coal industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. New Age Exploration Ltd 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. New Age Exploration Ltd 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.
Threats New Age Exploration Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of New Age Exploration Ltd are -
Environmental challenges
– New Age Exploration Ltd 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. New Age Exploration Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Coal industry.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Coal industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. New Age Exploration Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 New Age Exploration Ltd in the Coal sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. New Age Exploration Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Coal industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of New Age Exploration Ltd
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of New Age Exploration Ltd.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for New Age Exploration Ltd in Coal industry. The Coal 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, New Age Exploration Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Coal sector.
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. New Age Exploration Ltd will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
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
– New Age Exploration Ltd can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Coal 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 New Age Exploration Ltd.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that New Age Exploration Ltd is facing in Coal sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of New Age Exploration Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at New Age Exploration Ltd needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of New Age Exploration Ltd is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of New Age Exploration Ltd is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of New Age Exploration Ltd to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that New Age Exploration Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.