SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Woomera Mining (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Woomera Mining is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
geopolitical disruptions, there is backlash against globalization, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Woomera Mining can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Woomera Mining, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Woomera Mining 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 Woomera Mining can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Woomera Mining
2. Improving business portfolio management of Woomera Mining
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 Woomera Mining
Strengths of Woomera Mining | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Woomera Mining are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Woomera Mining 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Woomera Mining 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 Woomera Mining have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Woomera Mining is one of the most innovative firm in Gold & Silver sector.
Training and development
– Woomera Mining 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Woomera Mining in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Woomera Mining has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Woomera Mining to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the Gold & Silver industry
– Woomera Mining is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High brand equity
– Woomera Mining has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Woomera Mining to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Gold & Silver industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Woomera Mining digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Woomera Mining 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Woomera Mining is present in almost all the verticals within the Gold & Silver industry. This has provided Woomera Mining 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Woomera Mining 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Woomera Mining has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Woomera Mining 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Woomera Mining 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.
Weaknesses of Woomera Mining | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Woomera Mining are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Woomera Mining 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. Woomera Mining 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Woomera Mining 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Gold & Silver industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Woomera Mining is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Gold & Silver industry.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Woomera Mining has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Gold & Silver industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Gold & Silver industry, Woomera Mining 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.
High dependence on Woomera Mining ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Woomera Mining still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Gold & Silver industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Woomera Mining has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Woomera Mining has high operating costs in the Gold & Silver industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Woomera Mining lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Woomera Mining needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ less understanding of Woomera Mining strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Woomera Mining don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Woomera Mining, 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 Woomera Mining 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 Woomera Mining can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Woomera Mining is planning to shift buying processes online.
Woomera Mining Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Woomera Mining are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Woomera Mining 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Woomera Mining 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Woomera Mining can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Gold & Silver industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Woomera Mining 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 Woomera Mining to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Woomera Mining has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Gold & Silver industry. This can help Woomera Mining to build a more holistic ecosystem for Woomera Mining products in the Gold & Silver industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Woomera Mining 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 Woomera Mining to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Woomera Mining to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Woomera Mining to increase its market reach. Woomera Mining 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Gold & Silver industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Woomera Mining 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. Woomera Mining 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Woomera Mining can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Woomera Mining can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Woomera Mining can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Woomera Mining 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Gold & Silver industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Woomera Mining in the Gold & Silver industry. Now Woomera Mining can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Woomera Mining External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Woomera Mining are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Woomera Mining 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.
Increasing wage structure of Woomera Mining
– 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 Woomera Mining.
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. Woomera Mining 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Woomera Mining 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Woomera Mining is facing in Gold & Silver sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Woomera Mining needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Gold & Silver industry regulations.
Environmental challenges
– Woomera Mining 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. Woomera Mining can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Gold & Silver industry.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Woomera Mining.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Woomera Mining has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Gold & Silver industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Woomera Mining 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Woomera Mining 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.
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 Woomera Mining in the Gold & Silver sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Gold & Silver industry are lowering. It can presents Woomera Mining 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Woomera Mining 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 Woomera Mining prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Woomera Mining Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Woomera Mining 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 Woomera Mining 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 Woomera Mining 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 Woomera Mining 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 Woomera Mining needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.