Alliance Mineral (ALLI) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Metal Mining
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Alliance Mineral (Singapore)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Alliance Mineral is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Alliance Mineral can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Alliance Mineral, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Alliance Mineral 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 Alliance Mineral can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Alliance Mineral
2. Improving business portfolio management of Alliance Mineral
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Singapore
4. Making a Metal Mining sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Alliance Mineral
Strengths of Alliance Mineral | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Alliance Mineral are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Alliance Mineral in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Alliance Mineral has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Alliance Mineral to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Metal Mining industry
– Alliance Mineral has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Alliance Mineral to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Metal Mining industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Alliance Mineral to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Alliance Mineral is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Alliance Mineral has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Metal Mining industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Alliance Mineral have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the Metal Mining industry
– Alliance Mineral 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 Alliance Mineral
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Alliance Mineral does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Alliance Mineral in Metal Mining industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Alliance Mineral is one of the most innovative firm in Metal Mining sector.
Learning organization
- Alliance Mineral 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 Alliance Mineral is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Alliance Mineral emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Alliance Mineral is present in almost all the verticals within the Metal Mining industry. This has provided Alliance Mineral 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 Metal Mining
– Alliance Mineral is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry in Singapore. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Metal Mining industry in Singapore but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Alliance Mineral in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Alliance Mineral has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Alliance Mineral to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of Alliance Mineral | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Alliance Mineral are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Alliance Mineral, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Metal Mining 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.
High dependence on Alliance Mineral ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Alliance Mineral still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Metal Mining industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Alliance Mineral has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Alliance Mineral is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Metal Mining industry, but Alliance Mineral needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Alliance Mineral to focus more on services in the Metal Mining industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Metal Mining industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Singapore, Alliance Mineral 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 Metal Mining industry.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Alliance Mineral needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Metal Mining industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Alliance Mineral can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Alliance Mineral is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Alliance Mineral has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Metal Mining industry over the last five years. Alliance Mineral 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 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 Alliance Mineral supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Alliance Mineral is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Alliance Mineral vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Alliance Mineral has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Metal Mining industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Skills based hiring in Metal Mining industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Alliance Mineral 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Alliance Mineral has high operating costs in the Metal Mining industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Alliance Mineral lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Alliance Mineral, in the dynamic environment of Metal Mining industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Alliance Mineral has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Alliance Mineral Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Alliance Mineral are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Metal Mining industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Alliance Mineral can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Alliance Mineral can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Alliance Mineral to increase its market reach. Alliance Mineral 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Alliance Mineral has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Metal Mining sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Alliance Mineral to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Alliance Mineral to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Alliance Mineral 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Alliance Mineral 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 Alliance Mineral to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Alliance Mineral 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Alliance Mineral is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Alliance Mineral can utilize new technology in the field of Metal Mining industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Metal Mining industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Alliance Mineral 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. Alliance Mineral 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
– Alliance Mineral can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Metal Mining 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Alliance Mineral can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Metal Mining 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Alliance Mineral can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Alliance Mineral has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Metal Mining industry. This can help Alliance Mineral to build a more holistic ecosystem for Alliance Mineral products in the Metal Mining industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Alliance Mineral External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Alliance Mineral are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Metal Mining industry are lowering. It can presents Alliance Mineral with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Metal Mining sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Alliance Mineral has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Metal Mining industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Alliance Mineral needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Metal Mining 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Alliance Mineral is facing in Metal Mining sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Alliance Mineral 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 Alliance Mineral prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Alliance Mineral 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.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Metal Mining industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Alliance Mineral 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 Alliance Mineral in Metal Mining industry. The Metal Mining 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
– Alliance Mineral 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 Metal Mining 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. Alliance Mineral needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Metal Mining industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Alliance Mineral.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Alliance Mineral 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 Metal Mining industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Alliance Mineral Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Alliance Mineral 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 Alliance Mineral 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 Alliance Mineral 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 Alliance Mineral 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 Alliance Mineral needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.