Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Coastal Caribbean Oils & 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.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals
2. Improving business portfolio management of Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Oil & Gas Operations sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals
Strengths of Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals are -
Organizational Resilience of Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Coastal Caribbean Oils & 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 Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Oil & Gas Operations industry
– Coastal Caribbean Oils & 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Learning organization
- Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals 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 Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Coastal Caribbean Oils & 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals in the Energy sector have low bargaining power. Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Oil & Gas Operations industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Coastal Caribbean Oils & 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals is present in almost all the verticals within the Oil & Gas Operations industry. This has provided Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals 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 Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals is just above the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in last five years.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, but Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals to focus more on services in the Oil & Gas Operations industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring in Oil & Gas Operations industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Oil & Gas Operations 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 Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Oil & Gas Operations industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals has high operating costs in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals lucrative customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Oil & Gas Operations industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals to provide better information regarding Oil & Gas Operations products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Oil & Gas Operations industry over the last five years. Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Coastal Caribbean Oils & 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.
Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals can develop new processes and procedures in Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Oil & Gas Operations industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Coastal Caribbean Oils & 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 Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals can utilize new technology in the field of Oil & Gas Operations industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Oil & Gas Operations industry. This can help Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals to build a more holistic ecosystem for Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals products in the Oil & Gas Operations 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 Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals to increase its market reach. Coastal Caribbean Oils & 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.
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. Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Coastal Caribbean Oils & 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals 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 Oil & Gas Operations industry.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Coastal Caribbean Oils & 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 Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals 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.
Threats Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals are -
Environmental challenges
– Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals 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. Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Oil & Gas Operations 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 Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
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 Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Coastal Caribbean Oils & 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 Oil & Gas Operations industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Coastal Caribbean Oils & 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals 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 Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals prominent markets.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Coastal Caribbean Oils & 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 Oil & Gas Operations industry and other sectors.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals is facing in Oil & Gas Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Oil & Gas Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Coastal Caribbean Oils & 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 Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Coastal Caribbean Oils & 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 Coastal Caribbean Oils & 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 Coastal Caribbean Oils & 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 Coastal Caribbean Oils & 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 Coastal Caribbean Oils & Minerals needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.