Lithium Consolidated Mineral (LI3) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Metal Mining
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Lithium Consolidated Mineral (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Lithium Consolidated Mineral is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Lithium Consolidated Mineral
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Lithium Consolidated Mineral can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Lithium Consolidated Mineral, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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 Lithium Consolidated Mineral can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Lithium Consolidated Mineral
2. Improving business portfolio management of Lithium Consolidated Mineral
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Metal Mining sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Lithium Consolidated Mineral
Strengths of Lithium Consolidated Mineral | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Lithium Consolidated Mineral are -
Learning organization
- Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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 Lithium Consolidated Mineral is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Lithium Consolidated Mineral emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Lithium Consolidated Mineral is one of the most innovative firm in Metal Mining sector.
High brand equity
– Lithium Consolidated Mineral has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Lithium Consolidated Mineral to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Lithium Consolidated Mineral in Metal Mining industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Lithium Consolidated Mineral comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Metal Mining 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 Metal Mining industry
– Lithium Consolidated Mineral is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Lithium Consolidated Mineral has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Metal Mining industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Lithium Consolidated Mineral have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Lithium Consolidated Mineral is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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.
Training and development
– Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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.
Analytics focus
– Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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 Metal Mining 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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 Lithium Consolidated Mineral | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Lithium Consolidated Mineral are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Lithium Consolidated Mineral has some of the most successful models in the Metal Mining industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Lithium Consolidated Mineral should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Lithium Consolidated Mineral is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Lithium Consolidated Mineral to provide better information regarding Metal Mining products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Lithium Consolidated Mineral has high operating costs in the Metal Mining industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Lithium Consolidated Mineral lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Lithium Consolidated Mineral is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Metal Mining industry in last five years.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Lithium Consolidated Mineral needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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 Metal Mining industry using digital technology.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Lithium Consolidated Mineral needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Metal Mining industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Lithium Consolidated Mineral can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Lithium Consolidated Mineral is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Lithium Consolidated Mineral has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Metal Mining industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Need for greater diversity
– Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Lithium Consolidated Mineral is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Metal Mining industry, but Lithium Consolidated Mineral needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Lithium Consolidated Mineral to focus more on services in the Metal Mining industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Lithium Consolidated Mineral, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Metal Mining 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.
Lithium Consolidated Mineral Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Lithium Consolidated Mineral are -
Buying journey improvements
– Lithium Consolidated Mineral can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Metal Mining 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Metal Mining industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Lithium Consolidated Mineral in the Metal Mining industry. Now Lithium Consolidated Mineral can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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.
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 Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Lithium Consolidated Mineral can develop new processes and procedures in Metal Mining 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Lithium Consolidated Mineral has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Metal Mining industry. This can help Lithium Consolidated Mineral to build a more holistic ecosystem for Lithium Consolidated Mineral products in the Metal Mining industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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 Metal Mining industry.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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 Lithium Consolidated Mineral to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Lithium Consolidated Mineral has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Metal Mining sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Lithium Consolidated Mineral to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Lithium Consolidated Mineral to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Lithium Consolidated Mineral can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Lithium Consolidated Mineral operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Metal Mining sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Lithium Consolidated Mineral is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Lithium Consolidated Mineral can utilize new technology in the field of Metal Mining industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats Lithium Consolidated Mineral External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Lithium Consolidated Mineral are -
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. Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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 Lithium Consolidated Mineral prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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 Metal Mining industry.
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. Lithium Consolidated Mineral needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Metal Mining industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Lithium Consolidated Mineral is facing in Metal Mining sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Lithium Consolidated Mineral business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Lithium Consolidated Mineral has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Metal Mining industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Lithium Consolidated Mineral needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Metal Mining 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 Lithium Consolidated Mineral
– 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 Lithium Consolidated Mineral.
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 Lithium Consolidated Mineral.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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 Metal Mining industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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.
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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Lithium Consolidated Mineral Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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 Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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 Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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 Lithium Consolidated Mineral 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 Lithium Consolidated Mineral needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
