Black Dragon Gold (ATRGF) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Gold & Silver
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Black Dragon Gold (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Black Dragon Gold 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%, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions,
technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Black Dragon Gold
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Black Dragon Gold can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Black Dragon Gold, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Black Dragon Gold 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 Black Dragon Gold can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Black Dragon Gold
2. Improving business portfolio management of Black Dragon Gold
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Gold & Silver sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Black Dragon Gold
Strengths of Black Dragon Gold | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Black Dragon Gold are -
Digital Transformation in Gold & Silver industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Black Dragon Gold digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Black Dragon Gold 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 Gold & Silver industry
– Black Dragon Gold has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Black Dragon Gold to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Gold & Silver industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Black Dragon Gold to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Black Dragon Gold is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Innovation driven organization
– Black Dragon Gold is one of the most innovative firm in Gold & Silver sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Gold & Silver industry
– Black Dragon Gold is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Black Dragon Gold 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.
Analytics focus
– Black Dragon Gold 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 Gold & Silver industry. The technology infrastructure of United States 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Black Dragon Gold is present in almost all the verticals within the Gold & Silver industry. This has provided Black Dragon Gold 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Black Dragon Gold has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Black Dragon Gold 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.
Training and development
– Black Dragon Gold has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Black Dragon Gold in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Black Dragon Gold has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Black Dragon Gold to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Black Dragon Gold 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 Black Dragon Gold have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Black Dragon Gold | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Black Dragon Gold are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Black Dragon Gold has high operating costs in the Gold & Silver industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Black Dragon Gold lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Black Dragon Gold 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Black Dragon Gold 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Black Dragon Gold needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Black Dragon Gold has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Gold & Silver industry over the last five years. Black Dragon Gold 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Black Dragon Gold strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Black Dragon Gold don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Black Dragon Gold is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Gold & Silver industry, but Black Dragon Gold needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Black Dragon Gold to focus more on services in the Gold & Silver industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring in Gold & Silver industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Black Dragon Gold 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 Gold & Silver industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Black Dragon Gold 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Black Dragon Gold 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Black Dragon Gold has some of the most successful models in the Gold & Silver industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Black Dragon Gold should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Black Dragon Gold Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Black Dragon Gold are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Black Dragon Gold 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Black Dragon Gold 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 Black Dragon Gold to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– Black Dragon Gold 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Black Dragon Gold 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 Black Dragon Gold to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Black Dragon Gold can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Black Dragon Gold operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Gold & Silver sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Black Dragon Gold 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 Black Dragon Gold has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Gold & Silver industry. This can help Black Dragon Gold to build a more holistic ecosystem for Black Dragon Gold products in the Gold & Silver 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 Black Dragon Gold to increase its market reach. Black Dragon Gold 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 Gold & Silver industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Black Dragon Gold in the Gold & Silver industry. Now Black Dragon Gold can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Black Dragon Gold 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.
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. Black Dragon Gold can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Black Dragon Gold in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Gold & Silver industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Black Dragon Gold 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.
Threats Black Dragon Gold External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Black Dragon Gold are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Black Dragon Gold 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, Black Dragon Gold 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 Black Dragon Gold prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Black Dragon Gold 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.
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 Black Dragon Gold.
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. Black Dragon Gold can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Black Dragon Gold needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Gold & Silver industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Black Dragon Gold 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Black Dragon Gold 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.
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 Black Dragon Gold in the Gold & Silver sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Black Dragon Gold may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Gold & Silver sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Black Dragon Gold 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.
Increasing wage structure of Black Dragon Gold
– 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 Black Dragon Gold.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Gold & Silver industry are lowering. It can presents Black Dragon Gold with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Gold & Silver sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Black Dragon Gold Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Black Dragon Gold 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 Black Dragon Gold 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 Black Dragon Gold 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 Black Dragon Gold 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 Black Dragon Gold needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.