SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Metals Exploration (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Metals Exploration 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%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Metals Exploration
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Metals Exploration can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Metals Exploration, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Metals 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 Metals Exploration can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Metals Exploration
2. Improving business portfolio management of Metals Exploration
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Gold & Silver sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Metals Exploration
Strengths of Metals Exploration | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Metals Exploration are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Metals Exploration is present in almost all the verticals within the Gold & Silver industry. This has provided Metals 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.
Training and development
– Metals Exploration has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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
– Metals Exploration is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver 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.
High brand equity
– Metals Exploration has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Metals Exploration to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Gold & Silver industry
– Metals Exploration has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Metals Exploration to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Gold & Silver industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Metals Exploration to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Gold & Silver
– Metals Exploration is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Gold & Silver industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Metals Exploration in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Metals Exploration comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Gold & Silver 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)
– Metals Exploration has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Metals Exploration staying ahead in the Gold & Silver industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Metals 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 Metals Exploration is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Metals Exploration emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Gold & Silver industry
– Metals 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Metals 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Metals Exploration has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Gold & Silver industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Metals Exploration have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Metals Exploration | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Metals Exploration are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Metals 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 Gold & Silver industry over the last five years. Metals 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Metals Exploration needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Gold & Silver industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Metals Exploration can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Metals Exploration is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Metals Exploration is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Gold & Silver industry, but Metals Exploration needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Metals Exploration to focus more on services in the Gold & Silver industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of Metals Exploration strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Metals 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Metals Exploration has some of the most successful models in the Gold & Silver industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Metals Exploration should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Metals Exploration needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Metals Exploration has high operating costs in the Gold & Silver industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Metals Exploration lucrative customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Metals Exploration products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Metals Exploration needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Metals 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 Metals Exploration, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Gold & Silver 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 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 Metals Exploration supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Metals Exploration is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Metals Exploration vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Metals Exploration Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Metals Exploration are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Gold & Silver industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Metals Exploration 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. Metals Exploration 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Metals Exploration can develop new processes and procedures in Gold & Silver 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Metals Exploration can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Metals Exploration operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Gold & Silver sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Metals 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Metals Exploration has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Gold & Silver sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Metals Exploration to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Metals Exploration to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Metals 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 Metals 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Metals Exploration is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Metals Exploration can utilize new technology in the field of Gold & Silver industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Metals 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 Metals Exploration to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Metals 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.
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 Metals 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Metals 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Metals Exploration can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Gold & Silver 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Gold & Silver industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Metals Exploration in the Gold & Silver industry. Now Metals Exploration can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Metals Exploration External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Metals 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 Metals Exploration in the Gold & Silver sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Gold & Silver industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Metals 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
– Metals Exploration has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Gold & Silver industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Metals Exploration needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Gold & Silver 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.
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. Metals Exploration needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Gold & Silver industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Metals 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 Gold & Silver industry regulations.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Metals Exploration demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Gold & Silver industry and other sectors.
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 Metals Exploration business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Metals 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 Metals Exploration.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Metals 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 Gold & Silver 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 Metals Exploration.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Metals 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 Metals Exploration prominent markets.
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. Metals 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Metals Exploration Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Metals 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 Metals 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 Metals 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 Metals 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 Metals Exploration needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.