Diversified Gas & Oil (DGOC) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Oil & Gas - Integrated
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Diversified Gas & Oil (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Diversified Gas & Oil is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Diversified Gas & Oil
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Diversified Gas & Oil can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Diversified Gas & Oil, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Diversified Gas & Oil 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 Diversified Gas & Oil can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Diversified Gas & Oil
2. Improving business portfolio management of Diversified Gas & Oil
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Oil & Gas - Integrated sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Diversified Gas & Oil
Strengths of Diversified Gas & Oil | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Diversified Gas & Oil are -
Analytics focus
– Diversified Gas & Oil 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 United Kingdom 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Diversified Gas & Oil in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Diversified Gas & Oil has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Diversified Gas & Oil to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Oil & Gas - Integrated
– Diversified Gas & Oil is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Diversified Gas & Oil in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Training and development
– Diversified Gas & Oil 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Diversified Gas & Oil in the Energy sector have low bargaining power. Diversified Gas & Oil has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Diversified Gas & Oil to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Diversified Gas & Oil 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Diversified Gas & Oil 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 Diversified Gas & Oil have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Diversified Gas & Oil
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Diversified Gas & Oil does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Diversified Gas & Oil 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 Diversified Gas & Oil is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Diversified Gas & Oil emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Diversified Gas & Oil is one of the most innovative firm in Oil & Gas - Integrated sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– Diversified Gas & Oil is present in almost all the verticals within the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. This has provided Diversified Gas & Oil 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.
Weaknesses of Diversified Gas & Oil | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Diversified Gas & Oil are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Diversified Gas & Oil is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Diversified Gas & Oil to provide better information regarding Oil & Gas - Integrated products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Diversified Gas & Oil products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Diversified Gas & Oil needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Diversified Gas & Oil 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, Diversified Gas & Oil 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Diversified Gas & Oil, in the dynamic environment of Oil & Gas - Integrated industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Diversified Gas & Oil has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Diversified Gas & Oil has some of the most successful models in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Diversified Gas & Oil should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Diversified Gas & Oil 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 Diversified Gas & Oil lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Diversified Gas & Oil 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. Diversified Gas & Oil 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Diversified Gas & Oil 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 Diversified Gas & Oil 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry, Diversified Gas & Oil 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.
Diversified Gas & Oil Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Diversified Gas & Oil are -
Manufacturing automation
– Diversified Gas & Oil 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Diversified Gas & Oil 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.
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. Diversified Gas & Oil can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Diversified Gas & Oil can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Diversified Gas & Oil 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 Diversified Gas & Oil to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Diversified Gas & Oil can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Diversified Gas & Oil 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Diversified Gas & Oil has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Oil & Gas - Integrated sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Diversified Gas & Oil to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Diversified Gas & Oil to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Diversified Gas & Oil is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Diversified Gas & Oil 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Diversified Gas & Oil 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Diversified Gas & Oil can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Diversified Gas & Oil 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Diversified Gas & Oil 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.
Threats Diversified Gas & Oil External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Diversified Gas & Oil are -
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. Diversified Gas & Oil can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Diversified Gas & Oil 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 Oil & Gas - Integrated industry.
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. Diversified Gas & Oil 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.
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. Diversified Gas & Oil needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Diversified Gas & Oil in the Oil & Gas - Integrated sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Diversified Gas & Oil has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Diversified Gas & Oil needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Diversified Gas & Oil is facing in Oil & Gas - Integrated sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Diversified Gas & Oil 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.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Diversified Gas & Oil 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 Oil & Gas - Integrated industry regulations.
Environmental challenges
– Diversified Gas & Oil 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. Diversified Gas & Oil can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Diversified Gas & Oil 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.
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 Diversified Gas & Oil business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Diversified Gas & Oil Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Diversified Gas & Oil 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 Diversified Gas & Oil 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 Diversified Gas & Oil 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 Diversified Gas & Oil 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 Diversified Gas & Oil needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.