SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ikwezi Mining Ltd (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ikwezi Mining Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Ikwezi Mining Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ikwezi Mining Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ikwezi Mining Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ikwezi Mining 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 Ikwezi Mining Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ikwezi Mining Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ikwezi Mining 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 Ikwezi Mining Ltd
Strengths of Ikwezi Mining Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ikwezi Mining Ltd are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ikwezi Mining 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 Ikwezi Mining Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Ikwezi Mining Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Ikwezi Mining Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Ikwezi Mining 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Coal industry
– Ikwezi Mining Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ikwezi Mining Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Coal industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ikwezi Mining Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Ikwezi Mining 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Coal industry
– Ikwezi Mining Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in Coal industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ikwezi Mining Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ikwezi Mining Ltd 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Ikwezi Mining Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Coal sector.
Learning organization
- Ikwezi Mining 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 Ikwezi Mining Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ikwezi Mining Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Ikwezi Mining Ltd 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Ikwezi Mining Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Coal industry. This has provided Ikwezi Mining 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ikwezi Mining Ltd in the Energy sector have low bargaining power. Ikwezi Mining Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ikwezi Mining Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Ikwezi Mining Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ikwezi Mining Ltd are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Ikwezi Mining 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Ikwezi Mining Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Coal industry, but Ikwezi Mining Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Ikwezi Mining Ltd to focus more on services in the Coal industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring in Coal industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ikwezi Mining 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ikwezi Mining Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ikwezi Mining Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Coal industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Ikwezi Mining 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ikwezi Mining Ltd has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Coal industry over the last five years. Ikwezi Mining Ltd 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
– Ikwezi Mining Ltd 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 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 Ikwezi Mining Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Ikwezi Mining Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Ikwezi Mining Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Ikwezi Mining Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Coal 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Ikwezi Mining Ltd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Coal industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Employees’ less understanding of Ikwezi Mining Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Ikwezi Mining Ltd 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.
Ikwezi Mining Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ikwezi Mining Ltd are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ikwezi Mining 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Ikwezi Mining 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Ikwezi Mining Ltd can develop new processes and procedures in Coal 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ikwezi Mining Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ikwezi Mining Ltd 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 Ikwezi Mining Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Ikwezi Mining Ltd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Coal sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
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 Ikwezi Mining Ltd in the Coal industry. Now Ikwezi Mining Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Coal industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Ikwezi Mining Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Ikwezi Mining 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ikwezi Mining 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 Ikwezi Mining Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ikwezi Mining Ltd 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 Ikwezi Mining 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Ikwezi Mining Ltd 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 Ikwezi Mining Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Coal industry. This can help Ikwezi Mining Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ikwezi Mining Ltd products in the Coal industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Ikwezi Mining Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ikwezi Mining Ltd are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ikwezi Mining Ltd 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 Coal industry and other sectors.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ikwezi Mining Ltd is facing in Coal sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Ikwezi Mining 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 Ikwezi Mining Ltd.
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.
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. Ikwezi Mining Ltd 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
– Ikwezi Mining Ltd 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Coal industry are lowering. It can presents Ikwezi Mining Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Coal sector.
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.
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. Ikwezi Mining 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Ikwezi Mining Ltd 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 Coal industry regulations.
Environmental challenges
– Ikwezi Mining 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. Ikwezi Mining Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Coal industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ikwezi Mining Ltd 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 Ikwezi Mining Ltd prominent markets.
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 Ikwezi Mining Ltd in the Coal sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ikwezi Mining Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ikwezi Mining 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 Ikwezi Mining 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 Ikwezi Mining 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 Ikwezi Mining 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 Ikwezi Mining Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
