SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Jubilee Platinum (South Africa)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Jubilee Platinum is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Jubilee Platinum can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Jubilee Platinum, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Jubilee Platinum 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 Jubilee Platinum can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Jubilee Platinum
2. Improving business portfolio management of Jubilee Platinum
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Africa
4. Making a Metal Mining sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Jubilee Platinum
Strengths of Jubilee Platinum | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Jubilee Platinum are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Jubilee Platinum has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Jubilee Platinum 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Jubilee Platinum is one of the most innovative firm in Metal Mining sector.
High brand equity
– Jubilee Platinum has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Jubilee Platinum to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Jubilee Platinum comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Metal Mining 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.
Organizational Resilience of Jubilee Platinum
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Jubilee Platinum does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Metal Mining industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Jubilee Platinum digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Jubilee Platinum 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Metal Mining industry
– Jubilee Platinum has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Jubilee Platinum to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Metal Mining industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Jubilee Platinum to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Jubilee Platinum 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 Jubilee Platinum is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Jubilee Platinum emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Jubilee Platinum 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Jubilee Platinum has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Jubilee Platinum staying ahead in the Metal Mining 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 Metal Mining
– Jubilee Platinum is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry in South Africa. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Metal Mining industry in South Africa but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Jubilee Platinum in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Jubilee Platinum is present in almost all the verticals within the Metal Mining industry. This has provided Jubilee Platinum 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 Jubilee Platinum | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Jubilee Platinum are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Jubilee Platinum is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Metal Mining industry in last five years.
High dependence on Jubilee Platinum ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Jubilee Platinum 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 Jubilee Platinum has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Jubilee Platinum 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. Jubilee Platinum 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 Jubilee Platinum supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Jubilee Platinum is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Jubilee Platinum vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Jubilee Platinum is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Jubilee Platinum to provide better information regarding Metal Mining products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Jubilee Platinum 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Jubilee Platinum, 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Jubilee Platinum is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Metal Mining industry, but Jubilee Platinum needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Jubilee Platinum to focus more on services in the Metal Mining industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Jubilee Platinum is just above the Metal Mining 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Jubilee Platinum 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 Metal Mining industry using digital technology.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Jubilee Platinum, in the dynamic environment of Metal Mining industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Jubilee Platinum has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Jubilee Platinum Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Jubilee Platinum are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Jubilee Platinum can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Jubilee Platinum operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Metal Mining sector.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Metal Mining industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Jubilee Platinum in the Metal Mining industry. Now Jubilee Platinum can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Jubilee Platinum can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Jubilee Platinum is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Jubilee Platinum 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Jubilee Platinum 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Jubilee Platinum has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Metal Mining industry. This can help Jubilee Platinum to build a more holistic ecosystem for Jubilee Platinum products in the Metal Mining industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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 Jubilee Platinum 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Jubilee Platinum 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Jubilee Platinum 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Jubilee Platinum 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 Metal Mining industry.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Jubilee Platinum in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Metal Mining industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Jubilee Platinum 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 Jubilee Platinum to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Jubilee Platinum 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 Jubilee Platinum to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Jubilee Platinum to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Jubilee Platinum External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Jubilee Platinum are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Metal Mining industry are lowering. It can presents Jubilee Platinum with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Metal Mining sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Jubilee Platinum 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 Metal Mining industry.
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. Jubilee Platinum 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.
Increasing wage structure of Jubilee Platinum
– 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 Jubilee Platinum.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Jubilee Platinum may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Metal Mining sector.
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. Jubilee Platinum needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Metal Mining industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Jubilee Platinum 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Jubilee Platinum 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Jubilee Platinum is facing in Metal Mining sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Jubilee Platinum 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. Jubilee Platinum can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Metal Mining industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Jubilee Platinum has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Metal Mining industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Jubilee Platinum 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.
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 Jubilee Platinum in the Metal Mining sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Jubilee Platinum 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 Jubilee Platinum Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Jubilee Platinum 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 Jubilee Platinum 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 Jubilee Platinum 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 Jubilee Platinum 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 Jubilee Platinum needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.