SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for G3 Exploration (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , G3 Exploration is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that G3 Exploration can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the G3 Exploration, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which G3 Exploration 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 G3 Exploration can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of G3 Exploration
2. Improving business portfolio management of G3 Exploration
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 G3 Exploration
Strengths of G3 Exploration | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of G3 Exploration are -
High brand equity
– G3 Exploration has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled G3 Exploration to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of G3 Exploration in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the G3 Exploration 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.
Organizational Resilience of G3 Exploration
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing G3 Exploration does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- G3 Exploration 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 G3 Exploration is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at G3 Exploration emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– G3 Exploration is present in almost all the verticals within the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. This has provided G3 Exploration 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.
Digital Transformation in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For G3 Exploration digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. G3 Exploration 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of G3 Exploration in the Energy sector have low bargaining power. G3 Exploration has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps G3 Exploration to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that G3 Exploration 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
– G3 Exploration has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled G3 Exploration to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. The sustainable margins have also helped G3 Exploration to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– G3 Exploration is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– G3 Exploration has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. G3 Exploration 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.
Weaknesses of G3 Exploration | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of G3 Exploration are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, G3 Exploration needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
G3 Exploration has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High dependence on G3 Exploration ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of G3 Exploration still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though G3 Exploration has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of G3 Exploration is just above the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though G3 Exploration 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. G3 Exploration should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, G3 Exploration 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 Oil & Gas - Integrated industry.
Employees’ less understanding of G3 Exploration strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of G3 Exploration 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, G3 Exploration 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. G3 Exploration 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 harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, G3 Exploration is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help G3 Exploration 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.
Need for greater diversity
– G3 Exploration 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of G3 Exploration, 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.
G3 Exploration Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of G3 Exploration are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for G3 Exploration 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.
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 G3 Exploration 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
– G3 Exploration can develop new processes and procedures in Oil & Gas - Integrated 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 G3 Exploration has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. This can help G3 Exploration to build a more holistic ecosystem for G3 Exploration products in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for G3 Exploration 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 G3 Exploration to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help G3 Exploration to increase its market reach. G3 Exploration 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, G3 Exploration can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that G3 Exploration operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Oil & Gas - Integrated sector.
Loyalty marketing
– G3 Exploration 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for G3 Exploration 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.
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. G3 Exploration can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at G3 Exploration 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, G3 Exploration is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. G3 Exploration 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, G3 Exploration 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 G3 Exploration to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats G3 Exploration External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of G3 Exploration are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– G3 Exploration has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, G3 Exploration 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, G3 Exploration 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.
Regulatory challenges
– G3 Exploration 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.
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 G3 Exploration.
Increasing wage structure of G3 Exploration
– 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 G3 Exploration.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Oil & Gas - Integrated industry are lowering. It can presents G3 Exploration 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.
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. G3 Exploration needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. G3 Exploration can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 G3 Exploration business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– G3 Exploration 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that G3 Exploration is facing in Oil & Gas - Integrated sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, G3 Exploration 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 G3 Exploration prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of G3 Exploration Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at G3 Exploration 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 G3 Exploration 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 G3 Exploration 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 G3 Exploration 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 G3 Exploration needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.