SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Predator Oil (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Predator Oil is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Predator Oil can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Predator Oil, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Predator Oil 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 Predator Oil can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Predator Oil
2. Improving business portfolio management of Predator Oil
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 Predator Oil
Strengths of Predator Oil | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Predator Oil are -
Organizational Resilience of Predator Oil
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Predator Oil does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Predator Oil in the Energy sector have low bargaining power. Predator Oil has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Predator Oil to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– Predator Oil has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Predator Oil to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Predator Oil to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Predator Oil 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.
Ability to lead change in Oil & Gas - Integrated
– Predator Oil is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Predator Oil in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Predator Oil in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Predator Oil has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Predator Oil staying ahead in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Predator Oil comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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 recruit top talent
– Predator Oil is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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
– Predator Oil is one of the most innovative firm in Oil & Gas - Integrated sector.
Learning organization
- Predator Oil 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 Predator Oil is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Predator Oil emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Predator Oil 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 - Integrated industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Predator Oil have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Predator Oil | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Predator Oil are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Predator Oil 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Predator Oil needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
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 Predator Oil supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Predator Oil is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Predator Oil vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High dependence on Predator Oil ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Predator Oil 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 Predator Oil has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Predator Oil 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 Predator Oil strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Predator Oil 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry, Predator Oil 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Predator Oil, in the dynamic environment of Oil & Gas - Integrated industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Predator Oil 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 - Integrated industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Predator Oil 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Predator Oil products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Predator Oil needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Predator Oil 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.
Predator Oil Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Predator Oil are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Predator Oil is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Predator Oil 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Predator Oil 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. Predator Oil can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Predator Oil has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. This can help Predator Oil to build a more holistic ecosystem for Predator Oil products in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Predator Oil 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Predator Oil 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Predator Oil 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 Predator Oil to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Predator Oil can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Predator Oil 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Predator Oil can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Predator Oil operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Oil & Gas - Integrated sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Predator Oil 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Predator Oil can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Predator Oil to increase its market reach. Predator Oil 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.
Threats Predator Oil External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Predator Oil are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Predator Oil 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.
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.
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. Predator Oil can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Predator Oil 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. Predator Oil can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Predator Oil is facing in Oil & Gas - Integrated sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Predator Oil in the Oil & Gas - Integrated sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Predator Oil 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.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Predator Oil 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 Oil & Gas - Integrated industry and other sectors.
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. Predator Oil 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.
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 Predator Oil business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Predator Oil.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Predator Oil 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 Predator Oil prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Predator Oil Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Predator Oil 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 Predator Oil 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 Predator Oil 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 Predator Oil 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 Predator Oil needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.