County Coal Ltd (CCJ) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Coal
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for County Coal Ltd (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , County Coal Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, technology disruption, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that County Coal Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the County Coal Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which County Coal 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 County Coal Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of County Coal Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of County Coal 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 County Coal Ltd
Strengths of County Coal Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of County Coal Ltd are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– County Coal Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. County Coal Ltd 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.
Learning organization
- County Coal 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 County Coal Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at County Coal Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– County Coal 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 County Coal Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Coal industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For County Coal Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. County Coal 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.
Organizational Resilience of County Coal Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing County Coal Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of County Coal Ltd in the Energy sector have low bargaining power. County Coal Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps County Coal Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of County Coal 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– County Coal Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – County Coal Ltd staying ahead in the Coal industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– County Coal Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Coal sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– County Coal Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Coal industry. This has provided County Coal 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Coal industry
– County Coal 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.
Analytics focus
– County Coal Ltd 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 Coal 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.
Weaknesses of County Coal Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of County Coal Ltd are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at County Coal Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Coal industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. County Coal Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of County Coal Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Coal industry, but County Coal Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help County Coal Ltd to focus more on services in the Coal industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Need for greater diversity
– County Coal 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, County Coal Ltd 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 Coal industry using digital technology.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, County Coal 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. County Coal 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though County Coal Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Coal industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. County Coal Ltd 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, County Coal Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help County Coal Ltd to provide better information regarding Coal products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, County Coal Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on County Coal Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of County Coal Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Coal industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though County Coal Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of County Coal 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As County Coal Ltd is one of the leading players in the Coal industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Coal industry in last five years.
County Coal Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of County Coal Ltd are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for County Coal 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, County Coal Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. County Coal Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Coal industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– County Coal 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Coal industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. County Coal Ltd 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. County Coal Ltd 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.
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 County Coal 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help County Coal Ltd to increase its market reach. County Coal Ltd 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.
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 County Coal Ltd in the Coal industry. Now County Coal Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. County Coal Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– County Coal Ltd 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of County Coal Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Coal industry. This can help County Coal Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for County Coal Ltd products in the Coal industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects County Coal Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at County Coal Ltd 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 Coal industry.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– County Coal 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 County Coal Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help County Coal Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats County Coal Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of County Coal Ltd are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, County Coal Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Coal sector.
Environmental challenges
– County Coal 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. County Coal Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Coal industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for County Coal Ltd in Coal industry. The Coal 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.
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. County Coal 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.
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. County Coal Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Coal industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of County Coal 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 County Coal Ltd.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that County Coal Ltd is facing in Coal sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– County Coal 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.
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 County Coal Ltd in the Coal sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Coal industry are lowering. It can presents County Coal Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Coal sector.
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 County Coal Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 County Coal Ltd.
Regulatory challenges
– County Coal 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of County Coal Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at County Coal 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 County Coal 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 County Coal 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 County Coal 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 County Coal Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
