Golden Energy (GOLD) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Coal
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Golden Energy (Singapore)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Golden Energy is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Golden Energy can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Golden Energy, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Golden Energy 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 Golden Energy can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Golden Energy
2. Improving business portfolio management of Golden Energy
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Singapore
4. Making a Coal sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Golden Energy
Strengths of Golden Energy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Golden Energy are -
Organizational Resilience of Golden Energy
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Golden Energy does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Golden Energy is one of the leading players in the Coal industry in Singapore. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Singapore. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Golden Energy comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Coal 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 Golden Energy in the Energy sector have low bargaining power. Golden Energy has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Golden Energy to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Golden Energy 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Golden Energy in Coal industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Golden Energy has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Golden Energy staying ahead in the Coal industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Coal
– Golden Energy is one of the leading players in the Coal industry in Singapore. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Coal industry in Singapore but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Golden Energy in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Golden Energy 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Golden Energy has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Coal industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Golden Energy have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Golden Energy 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Coal industry
– Golden Energy has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Golden Energy to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Coal industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Golden Energy to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Golden Energy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Golden Energy are -
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 Golden Energy supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Golden Energy is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Golden Energy vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Golden Energy 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 Coal industry using digital technology.
Skills based hiring in Coal industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Golden Energy 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Golden Energy has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Coal industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Golden Energy has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Coal industry over the last five years. Golden Energy 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 Golden Energy needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Coal industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Golden Energy can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Golden Energy is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Golden Energy 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Golden Energy has high operating costs in the Coal industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Golden Energy lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Golden Energy, in the dynamic environment of Coal industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Golden Energy has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Golden Energy is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Golden Energy to provide better information regarding Coal products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Golden Energy is just above the Coal 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.
Golden Energy Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Golden Energy are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Golden Energy 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Golden Energy is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Golden Energy can utilize new technology in the field of Coal industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Golden Energy has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Coal sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Golden Energy to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Golden Energy to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Golden Energy 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. Golden Energy can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Golden Energy can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Golden Energy operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Coal sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Golden Energy 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.
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 Golden Energy 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 Golden Energy has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Coal industry. This can help Golden Energy to build a more holistic ecosystem for Golden Energy products in the Coal industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Golden Energy to increase its market reach. Golden Energy 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Coal industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Golden Energy in the Coal industry. Now Golden Energy can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Golden Energy can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Coal 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Coal industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Golden Energy 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. Golden Energy 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.
Threats Golden Energy External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Golden Energy are -
Increasing wage structure of Golden Energy
– 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 Golden Energy.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Golden Energy is facing in Coal sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Golden Energy 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 Coal industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Golden Energy 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Golden Energy 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 Coal industry.
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 Golden Energy in the Coal sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Golden Energy has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Coal industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Golden Energy needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Coal 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. Golden Energy needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Coal industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Golden Energy 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 Golden Energy prominent markets.
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 Golden Energy.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Coal industry are lowering. It can presents Golden Energy with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Coal 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.
Environmental challenges
– Golden Energy 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. Golden Energy can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Coal industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Golden Energy Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Golden Energy 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 Golden Energy 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 Golden Energy 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 Golden Energy 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 Golden Energy needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.