SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Balmoral Resources (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Balmoral Resources is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing,
there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Balmoral Resources
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Balmoral Resources can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Balmoral Resources, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Balmoral Resources 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 Balmoral Resources can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Balmoral Resources
2. Improving business portfolio management of Balmoral Resources
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 Balmoral Resources
Strengths of Balmoral Resources | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Balmoral Resources are -
Digital Transformation in Gold & Silver industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Balmoral Resources digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Balmoral Resources 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.
Learning organization
- Balmoral Resources 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 Balmoral Resources is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Balmoral Resources emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Balmoral Resources 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.
Ability to lead change in Gold & Silver
– Balmoral Resources is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Gold & Silver industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Balmoral Resources in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Balmoral Resources 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Gold & Silver industry
– Balmoral Resources is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Balmoral Resources 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Balmoral Resources 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 Balmoral Resources have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Gold & Silver industry
– Balmoral Resources has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Balmoral Resources to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Gold & Silver industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Balmoral Resources to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Balmoral Resources has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Balmoral Resources to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Balmoral Resources has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Balmoral Resources 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Balmoral Resources in Gold & Silver industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Balmoral Resources | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Balmoral Resources are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Balmoral Resources needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Balmoral Resources 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Balmoral Resources strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Balmoral Resources 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Balmoral Resources products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Balmoral Resources needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Balmoral Resources 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Balmoral Resources, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Gold & Silver 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Balmoral Resources is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Balmoral Resources to provide better information regarding Gold & Silver products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Balmoral Resources, in the dynamic environment of Gold & Silver industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Balmoral Resources has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring in Gold & Silver industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Balmoral Resources 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Balmoral Resources 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. Balmoral Resources should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on Balmoral Resources ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Balmoral Resources still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Gold & Silver industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Balmoral Resources has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Balmoral Resources Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Balmoral Resources are -
Buying journey improvements
– Balmoral Resources 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Balmoral Resources 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 Balmoral Resources to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Developing new processes and practices
– Balmoral Resources can develop new processes and procedures in Gold & Silver 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 Gold & Silver industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Balmoral Resources can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Balmoral Resources 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.
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. Balmoral Resources can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Balmoral Resources can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Balmoral Resources 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.
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 Balmoral Resources in the Gold & Silver industry. Now Balmoral Resources can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Balmoral Resources has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Gold & Silver sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Balmoral Resources to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Balmoral Resources to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Balmoral Resources 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Gold & Silver industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Balmoral Resources 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. Balmoral Resources 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.
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 Balmoral Resources 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.
Threats Balmoral Resources External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Balmoral Resources are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Balmoral Resources 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Gold & Silver industry are lowering. It can presents Balmoral Resources with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Gold & Silver sector.
Increasing wage structure of Balmoral Resources
– 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 Balmoral Resources.
Regulatory challenges
– Balmoral Resources 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 Gold & Silver industry regulations.
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.
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.
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 Balmoral Resources business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Balmoral Resources can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Balmoral Resources has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Gold & Silver industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Balmoral Resources needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Gold & Silver 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Balmoral Resources 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Balmoral Resources 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Balmoral Resources 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Balmoral Resources is facing in Gold & Silver sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Balmoral Resources Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Balmoral Resources 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 Balmoral Resources 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 Balmoral Resources 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 Balmoral Resources 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 Balmoral Resources needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.