SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Dolomite Corp (Malaysia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Dolomite Corp is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices,
geopolitical disruptions, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Dolomite Corp can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dolomite Corp, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dolomite Corp 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 Dolomite Corp can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Dolomite Corp
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dolomite Corp
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Malaysia
4. Making a Construction - Raw Materials sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Dolomite Corp
Strengths of Dolomite Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Dolomite Corp are -
Strong track record of project management in the Construction - Raw Materials industry
– Dolomite Corp is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Dolomite Corp is one of the most innovative firm in Construction - Raw Materials sector.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Dolomite Corp has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Dolomite Corp staying ahead in the Construction - Raw Materials industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Dolomite Corp 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.
Learning organization
- Dolomite Corp 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 Dolomite Corp is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Dolomite Corp emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Construction - Raw Materials industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Dolomite Corp digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Dolomite Corp has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Dolomite Corp has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Dolomite Corp 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Dolomite Corp comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Dolomite Corp in Construction - Raw Materials industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Dolomite Corp 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 Construction - Raw Materials industry. The technology infrastructure of Malaysia 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.
Organizational Resilience of Dolomite Corp
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Dolomite Corp does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Dolomite Corp is present in almost all the verticals within the Construction - Raw Materials industry. This has provided Dolomite Corp 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.
Weaknesses of Dolomite Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Dolomite Corp are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Dolomite Corp has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Construction - Raw Materials industry over the last five years. Dolomite Corp 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.
High dependence on Dolomite Corp ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Dolomite Corp still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Construction - Raw Materials industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Dolomite Corp has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Dolomite Corp 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Dolomite Corp needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Construction - Raw Materials industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Dolomite Corp can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Dolomite Corp is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring in Construction - Raw Materials industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Dolomite Corp 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Construction - Raw Materials industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Malaysia, Dolomite Corp 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 Construction - Raw Materials industry.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Dolomite Corp 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 Construction - Raw Materials industry using digital technology.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Dolomite Corp 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Dolomite Corp products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Dolomite Corp needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Dolomite Corp has high operating costs in the Construction - Raw Materials industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Dolomite Corp lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Dolomite Corp is one of the leading players in the Construction - Raw Materials industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Construction - Raw Materials industry in last five years.
Dolomite Corp Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Dolomite Corp are -
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. Dolomite Corp can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Dolomite Corp 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 Construction - Raw Materials industry.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Dolomite Corp has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Construction - Raw Materials sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Dolomite Corp to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Dolomite Corp to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Construction - Raw Materials industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Dolomite Corp 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. Dolomite Corp 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Dolomite Corp 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Dolomite Corp can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Dolomite Corp operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Construction - Raw Materials sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Dolomite Corp 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 Dolomite Corp to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Dolomite Corp can develop new processes and procedures in Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Dolomite Corp 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Dolomite Corp to increase its market reach. Dolomite Corp 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Construction - Raw Materials industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Dolomite Corp can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Dolomite Corp has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Construction - Raw Materials industry. This can help Dolomite Corp to build a more holistic ecosystem for Dolomite Corp products in the Construction - Raw Materials industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Dolomite Corp 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 Dolomite Corp to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Dolomite Corp External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Dolomite Corp are -
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. Dolomite Corp 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Dolomite Corp has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Construction - Raw Materials industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Dolomite Corp needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Construction - Raw Materials industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Dolomite Corp can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Dolomite Corp may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Construction - Raw Materials sector.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Construction - Raw Materials industry are lowering. It can presents Dolomite Corp with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Construction - Raw Materials sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Dolomite Corp 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 Construction - Raw Materials industry.
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 Dolomite Corp business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Dolomite Corp
– 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 Dolomite Corp.
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 Dolomite Corp.
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 Dolomite Corp in the Construction - Raw Materials sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Dolomite Corp 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 Construction - Raw Materials industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Dolomite Corp 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Dolomite Corp Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Dolomite Corp 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 Dolomite Corp 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 Dolomite Corp 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 Dolomite Corp 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 Dolomite Corp needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
