Avrupa Minerals (AVPMF) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Avrupa Minerals (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Avrupa Minerals is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, technology disruption, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Avrupa Minerals

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Avrupa Minerals can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Avrupa Minerals, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Avrupa Minerals 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Avrupa Minerals can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Avrupa Minerals
2. Improving business portfolio management of Avrupa Minerals
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Metal Mining sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Avrupa Minerals

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Strengths of Avrupa Minerals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Avrupa Minerals are -

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Avrupa Minerals 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.

Digital Transformation in Metal Mining industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Avrupa Minerals digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Avrupa Minerals 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Avrupa Minerals has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Avrupa Minerals 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Avrupa Minerals 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 Avrupa Minerals have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Avrupa Minerals has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Avrupa Minerals 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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Avrupa Minerals is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining 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.

Ability to lead change in Metal Mining

– Avrupa Minerals is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Metal Mining industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Avrupa Minerals in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Strong track record of project management in the Metal Mining industry

– Avrupa Minerals is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Analytics focus

– Avrupa Minerals 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 Metal Mining 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.

Innovation driven organization

– Avrupa Minerals is one of the most innovative firm in Metal Mining sector.

High brand equity

– Avrupa Minerals has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Avrupa Minerals to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Avrupa Minerals in Metal Mining industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

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Weaknesses of Avrupa Minerals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Avrupa Minerals 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 Avrupa Minerals supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Avrupa Minerals is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Avrupa Minerals vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of United States, Avrupa Minerals needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Avrupa Minerals 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 Avrupa Minerals lucrative customers.

High dependence on Avrupa Minerals ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Avrupa Minerals 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 Avrupa Minerals has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Avrupa Minerals 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.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Avrupa Minerals 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.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Metal Mining industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Avrupa Minerals 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.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Avrupa Minerals is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Avrupa Minerals to provide better information regarding Metal Mining products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Avrupa Minerals, 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.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Avrupa Minerals, in the dynamic environment of Metal Mining industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Avrupa Minerals has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Avrupa Minerals 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.

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Avrupa Minerals Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Avrupa Minerals are -

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Avrupa Minerals to increase its market reach. Avrupa Minerals 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Avrupa Minerals 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Avrupa Minerals is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Avrupa Minerals 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Avrupa Minerals 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 Avrupa Minerals to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Avrupa Minerals 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 Metal Mining industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Avrupa Minerals 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. Avrupa Minerals 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Avrupa Minerals 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 Avrupa Minerals to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Developing new processes and practices

– Avrupa Minerals can develop new processes and procedures in Metal Mining 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.

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. Avrupa Minerals can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Avrupa Minerals 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. Avrupa Minerals 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, Avrupa Minerals can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Avrupa Minerals operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Metal Mining sector.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Avrupa Minerals 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 Avrupa Minerals to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Manufacturing automation

– Avrupa Minerals 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.

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Threats Avrupa Minerals External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Avrupa Minerals are -

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.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Avrupa Minerals 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.

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 Avrupa Minerals business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Avrupa Minerals is facing in Metal Mining sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Avrupa Minerals 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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Avrupa Minerals 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.

Increasing wage structure of Avrupa Minerals

– 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 Avrupa Minerals.

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 Avrupa Minerals.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Avrupa Minerals 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.

Regulatory challenges

– Avrupa Minerals 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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Avrupa Minerals 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.

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. Avrupa Minerals can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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 Avrupa Minerals in the Metal Mining sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Avrupa Minerals Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Avrupa Minerals 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 Avrupa Minerals 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 Avrupa Minerals 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 Avrupa Minerals 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 Avrupa Minerals needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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