Canadian Overseas Petroleum (COPL) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Oil & Gas Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Canadian Overseas Petroleum (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Canadian Overseas Petroleum is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Canadian Overseas Petroleum
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Canadian Overseas Petroleum can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Canadian Overseas Petroleum, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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 Canadian Overseas Petroleum can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Canadian Overseas Petroleum
2. Improving business portfolio management of Canadian Overseas Petroleum
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 Canadian Overseas Petroleum
Strengths of Canadian Overseas Petroleum | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Canadian Overseas Petroleum are -
Learning organization
- Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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 Canadian Overseas Petroleum is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Canadian Overseas Petroleum emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Canadian Overseas Petroleum in Oil & Gas Operations industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Canadian Overseas Petroleum is one of the most innovative firm in Oil & Gas Operations sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– Canadian Overseas Petroleum is present in almost all the verticals within the Oil & Gas Operations industry. This has provided Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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.
Ability to lead change in Oil & Gas Operations
– Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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 Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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 Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Canadian Overseas Petroleum in the Energy sector have low bargaining power. Canadian Overseas Petroleum has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Canadian Overseas Petroleum to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Oil & Gas Operations industry
– Canadian Overseas Petroleum is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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.
High brand equity
– Canadian Overseas Petroleum has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Canadian Overseas Petroleum to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Canadian Overseas Petroleum has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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 Canadian Overseas Petroleum | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Canadian Overseas Petroleum are -
Need for greater diversity
– Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Canadian Overseas Petroleum is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, but Canadian Overseas Petroleum needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Canadian Overseas Petroleum to focus more on services in the Oil & Gas Operations industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Canadian Overseas Petroleum has some of the most successful models in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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, Canadian Overseas Petroleum needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on Canadian Overseas Petroleum ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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 Canadian Overseas Petroleum has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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 Canadian Overseas Petroleum can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Canadian Overseas Petroleum is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Canadian Overseas Petroleum products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Canadian Overseas Petroleum needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Canadian Overseas Petroleum is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Canadian Overseas Petroleum to provide better information regarding Oil & Gas Operations products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Canadian Overseas Petroleum, in the dynamic environment of Oil & Gas Operations industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Canadian Overseas Petroleum has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring in Oil & Gas Operations industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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.
Canadian Overseas Petroleum Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Canadian Overseas Petroleum are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Oil & Gas Operations industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Canadian Overseas Petroleum can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Canadian Overseas Petroleum can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Canadian Overseas Petroleum can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Oil & Gas Operations industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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. Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Canadian Overseas Petroleum can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Canadian Overseas Petroleum has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Oil & Gas Operations industry. This can help Canadian Overseas Petroleum to build a more holistic ecosystem for Canadian Overseas Petroleum products in the Oil & Gas Operations industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Oil & Gas Operations industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Canadian Overseas Petroleum in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. Now Canadian Overseas Petroleum can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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 Canadian Overseas Petroleum External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Canadian Overseas Petroleum are -
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 Canadian Overseas Petroleum.
Increasing wage structure of Canadian Overseas Petroleum
– 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 Canadian Overseas Petroleum.
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. Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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.
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 Canadian Overseas Petroleum in the Oil & Gas Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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 Canadian Overseas Petroleum prominent markets.
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. Canadian Overseas Petroleum can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Canadian Overseas Petroleum is facing in Oil & Gas Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Oil & Gas Operations industry are lowering. It can presents Canadian Overseas Petroleum with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Oil & Gas Operations sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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 Operations industry regulations.
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. Canadian Overseas Petroleum needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Oil & Gas Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Canadian Overseas Petroleum Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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 Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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 Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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 Canadian Overseas Petroleum 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 Canadian Overseas Petroleum needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.