SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Touchstone Exploration (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Touchstone Exploration is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Touchstone Exploration
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Touchstone Exploration can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Touchstone Exploration, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Touchstone 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 Touchstone Exploration can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Touchstone Exploration
2. Improving business portfolio management of Touchstone Exploration
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Oil & Gas Operations sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Touchstone Exploration
Strengths of Touchstone Exploration | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Touchstone Exploration are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Touchstone 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 Touchstone Exploration
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Touchstone Exploration does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Touchstone Exploration 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 Operations 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Touchstone Exploration 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 Operations industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Touchstone Exploration have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Touchstone 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Touchstone Exploration comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Ability to lead change in Oil & Gas Operations
– Touchstone Exploration is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Touchstone Exploration in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Touchstone 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 Touchstone Exploration is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Touchstone Exploration emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Touchstone Exploration is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in United Kingdom. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United Kingdom. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Innovation driven organization
– Touchstone Exploration is one of the most innovative firm in Oil & Gas Operations sector.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Touchstone Exploration has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Touchstone Exploration staying ahead in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Oil & Gas Operations industry
– Touchstone Exploration has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Touchstone Exploration to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Touchstone Exploration to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Touchstone Exploration | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Touchstone Exploration are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Touchstone Exploration products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Touchstone Exploration needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, Touchstone Exploration 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Touchstone Exploration has high operating costs in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Touchstone Exploration lucrative customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Touchstone Exploration needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Oil & Gas Operations industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Touchstone Exploration can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Touchstone Exploration is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Touchstone 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 Operations industry over the last five years. Touchstone 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Touchstone Exploration is just above the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Touchstone 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Touchstone Exploration is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations 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 Operations industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Touchstone Exploration, in the dynamic environment of Oil & Gas Operations industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Touchstone Exploration has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on Touchstone Exploration ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Touchstone Exploration still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Oil & Gas Operations industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Touchstone Exploration has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Oil & Gas Operations industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Touchstone 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 Operations industry.
Touchstone Exploration Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Touchstone Exploration are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Touchstone Exploration 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Touchstone Exploration has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Oil & Gas Operations sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Touchstone Exploration to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Touchstone Exploration to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Touchstone 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Touchstone Exploration can develop new processes and procedures in Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Touchstone Exploration 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Touchstone Exploration is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Touchstone Exploration can utilize new technology in the field of Oil & Gas Operations industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Touchstone 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.
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. Touchstone Exploration can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Touchstone 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 Touchstone Exploration to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Touchstone Exploration can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Touchstone Exploration has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Oil & Gas Operations industry. This can help Touchstone Exploration to build a more holistic ecosystem for Touchstone Exploration products in the Oil & Gas Operations 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 Touchstone Exploration 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 Touchstone 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 Operations industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Touchstone Exploration External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Touchstone Exploration 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 Touchstone Exploration in the Oil & Gas Operations 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. Touchstone Exploration 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. Touchstone Exploration needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Oil & Gas Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Touchstone 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.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Touchstone 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 Touchstone Exploration.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Touchstone Exploration 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 Operations industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Touchstone Exploration in Oil & Gas Operations industry. The Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Environmental challenges
– Touchstone Exploration 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. Touchstone Exploration can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Oil & Gas Operations industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Oil & Gas Operations industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Touchstone Exploration can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Touchstone Exploration has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Touchstone Exploration needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Oil & Gas Operations 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, Touchstone 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 Operations sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Touchstone Exploration is facing in Oil & Gas Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Touchstone Exploration Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Touchstone 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 Touchstone 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 Touchstone 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 Touchstone 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 Touchstone Exploration needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
