Enhanced Oil & Gas (EOR) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Oil & Gas - Integrated
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Enhanced Oil & Gas (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Enhanced Oil & Gas is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Enhanced Oil & Gas
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Enhanced Oil & Gas can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Enhanced Oil & Gas, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Enhanced Oil & Gas 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 Enhanced Oil & Gas can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Enhanced Oil & Gas
2. Improving business portfolio management of Enhanced Oil & Gas
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Oil & Gas - Integrated sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Enhanced Oil & Gas
Strengths of Enhanced Oil & Gas | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Enhanced Oil & Gas are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Enhanced Oil & Gas has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Enhanced Oil & Gas have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Enhanced Oil & Gas in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Enhanced Oil & Gas comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Training and development
– Enhanced Oil & Gas 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Enhanced Oil & Gas is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Enhanced Oil & Gas in the Energy sector have low bargaining power. Enhanced Oil & Gas has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Enhanced Oil & Gas to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Enhanced Oil & Gas 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 Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– Enhanced Oil & Gas has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Enhanced Oil & Gas to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Enhanced Oil & Gas to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Enhanced Oil & Gas 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 Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Learning organization
- Enhanced Oil & Gas 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 Enhanced Oil & Gas is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Enhanced Oil & Gas emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Enhanced Oil & Gas is one of the most innovative firm in Oil & Gas - Integrated sector.
High brand equity
– Enhanced Oil & Gas has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Enhanced Oil & Gas to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of Enhanced Oil & Gas | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Enhanced Oil & Gas are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Enhanced Oil & Gas, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Oil & Gas - Integrated 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Enhanced Oil & Gas has high operating costs in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Enhanced Oil & Gas lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Enhanced Oil & Gas needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Enhanced Oil & Gas has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry over the last five years. Enhanced Oil & Gas 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Enhanced Oil & Gas products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Enhanced Oil & Gas needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ less understanding of Enhanced Oil & Gas strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Enhanced Oil & Gas 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Enhanced Oil & Gas is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry in last five years.
Skills based hiring in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Enhanced Oil & Gas 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.
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 Enhanced Oil & Gas supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Enhanced Oil & Gas is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Enhanced Oil & Gas vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Enhanced Oil & Gas 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Enhanced Oil & Gas 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.
Enhanced Oil & Gas Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Enhanced Oil & Gas are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Enhanced Oil & Gas can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Enhanced Oil & Gas 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 Enhanced Oil & Gas to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Enhanced Oil & Gas 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.
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 Enhanced Oil & Gas 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Enhanced Oil & Gas has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. This can help Enhanced Oil & Gas to build a more holistic ecosystem for Enhanced Oil & Gas products in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Enhanced Oil & Gas can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Enhanced Oil & Gas 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 Oil & Gas - Integrated industry.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Enhanced Oil & Gas to increase its market reach. Enhanced Oil & Gas 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Enhanced Oil & Gas in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Enhanced Oil & Gas 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 Enhanced Oil & Gas to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Enhanced Oil & Gas 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Enhanced Oil & Gas is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Enhanced Oil & Gas can utilize new technology in the field of Oil & Gas - Integrated industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Enhanced Oil & Gas in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. Now Enhanced Oil & Gas can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Enhanced Oil & Gas External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Enhanced Oil & Gas are -
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 Enhanced Oil & Gas in the Oil & Gas - Integrated sector and impact the bottomline 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. Enhanced Oil & Gas 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 wage structure of Enhanced Oil & Gas
– 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 Enhanced Oil & Gas.
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.
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 Enhanced Oil & Gas business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Enhanced Oil & Gas needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Enhanced Oil & Gas 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Enhanced Oil & Gas can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Oil & Gas - Integrated industry are lowering. It can presents Enhanced Oil & Gas with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Oil & Gas - Integrated sector.
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 Enhanced Oil & Gas.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Enhanced Oil & Gas may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Oil & Gas - Integrated sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Enhanced Oil & Gas 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 Enhanced Oil & Gas prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Enhanced Oil & Gas is facing in Oil & Gas - Integrated sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Enhanced Oil & Gas Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Enhanced Oil & Gas 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 Enhanced Oil & Gas 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 Enhanced Oil & Gas 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 Enhanced Oil & Gas 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 Enhanced Oil & Gas needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.