Oriole (ORR) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Oriole (United Kingdom)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Oriole is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, technology disruption, increasing commodity prices, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Oriole

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Oriole can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Oriole, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Oriole 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Oriole can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Oriole
2. Improving business portfolio management of Oriole
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 Oriole

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Strengths of Oriole | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Oriole are -

Highly skilled collaborators

– Oriole 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 Oriole have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Strong track record of project management in the Gold & Silver industry

– Oriole is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Organizational Resilience of Oriole

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Oriole does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Oriole has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Oriole 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Oriole in Gold & Silver industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Oriole 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.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Oriole has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Oriole 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.

Learning organization

- Oriole 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 Oriole is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Oriole emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Oriole 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.

High brand equity

– Oriole has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Oriole 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

– Oriole has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Oriole to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Gold & Silver industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Oriole to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Diverse revenue streams

– Oriole is present in almost all the verticals within the Gold & Silver industry. This has provided Oriole 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.

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Weaknesses of Oriole | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Oriole are -

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Oriole is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Oriole to provide better information regarding Gold & Silver products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Skills based hiring in Gold & Silver industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Oriole 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.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Oriole has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Gold & Silver industry using digital technology.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Oriole 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 Oriole can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Oriole is planning to shift buying processes online.

Need for greater diversity

– Oriole 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Oriole is just above the Gold & Silver 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.

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 Oriole supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Oriole is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Oriole vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Oriole is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Gold & Silver industry in last five years.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Gold & Silver industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Oriole 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 Gold & Silver industry.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Oriole is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Gold & Silver industry, but Oriole needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Oriole to focus more on services in the Gold & Silver industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Oriole, 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.

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Oriole Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Oriole are -

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Oriole 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 Gold & Silver industry.

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 Oriole in the Gold & Silver industry. Now Oriole can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Loyalty marketing

– Oriole 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.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Gold & Silver industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Oriole can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Oriole 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.

Developing new processes and practices

– Oriole 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Oriole 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Oriole 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.

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. Oriole 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. Oriole 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.

Manufacturing automation

– Oriole can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Gold & Silver 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Oriole 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 Oriole to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Oriole to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

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 Oriole 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Oriole has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Gold & Silver industry. This can help Oriole to build a more holistic ecosystem for Oriole products in the Gold & Silver industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

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Threats Oriole External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Oriole are -

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. Oriole can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Oriole in Gold & Silver industry. The Gold & Silver 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.

Regulatory challenges

– Oriole 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.

Environmental challenges

– Oriole 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. Oriole can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Gold & Silver industry.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Oriole is facing in Gold & Silver sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Oriole 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 Gold & Silver industry.

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. Oriole needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Gold & Silver industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

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.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Oriole has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Gold & Silver industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Oriole 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.

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.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Oriole 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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Oriole 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.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Oriole 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 Oriole prominent markets.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Oriole Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Oriole 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 Oriole 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 Oriole 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 Oriole 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 Oriole needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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