Labrador Iron Ore Royalty (LIF) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Metal Mining
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Labrador Iron Ore Royalty (Canada)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Labrador Iron Ore Royalty is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing commodity prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization,
increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Labrador Iron Ore Royalty
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Labrador Iron Ore Royalty can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Labrador Iron Ore Royalty, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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 Labrador Iron Ore Royalty can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Labrador Iron Ore Royalty
2. Improving business portfolio management of Labrador Iron Ore Royalty
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Canada
4. Making a Metal Mining sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Labrador Iron Ore Royalty
Strengths of Labrador Iron Ore Royalty | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Labrador Iron Ore Royalty are -
Ability to lead change in Metal Mining
– Labrador Iron Ore Royalty is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry in Canada. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Metal Mining industry in Canada but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Labrador Iron Ore Royalty in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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 Labrador Iron Ore Royalty is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Labrador Iron Ore Royalty emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Labrador Iron Ore Royalty in Metal Mining industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Labrador Iron Ore Royalty has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Labrador Iron Ore Royalty has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Labrador Iron Ore Royalty is one of the most innovative firm in Metal Mining sector.
High brand equity
– Labrador Iron Ore Royalty has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Labrador Iron Ore Royalty to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Labrador Iron Ore Royalty comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Metal Mining industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Strong track record of project management in the Metal Mining industry
– Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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
– Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Metal Mining industry
– Labrador Iron Ore Royalty has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Labrador Iron Ore Royalty to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Metal Mining industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Labrador Iron Ore Royalty to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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 Canada 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.
Weaknesses of Labrador Iron Ore Royalty | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Labrador Iron Ore Royalty are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Labrador Iron Ore Royalty is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Labrador Iron Ore Royalty to provide better information regarding Metal Mining 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 Labrador Iron Ore Royalty, in the dynamic environment of Metal Mining industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Labrador Iron Ore Royalty has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Labrador Iron Ore Royalty needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Metal Mining industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Labrador Iron Ore Royalty can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Labrador Iron Ore Royalty is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Canada, Labrador Iron Ore Royalty needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Labrador Iron Ore Royalty has some of the most successful models in the Metal Mining industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Labrador Iron Ore Royalty should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Labrador Iron Ore Royalty is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Metal Mining industry, but Labrador Iron Ore Royalty needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Labrador Iron Ore Royalty to focus more on services in the Metal Mining industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Metal Mining industry, Labrador Iron Ore Royalty needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Labrador Iron Ore Royalty has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Metal Mining industry using digital technology.
Labrador Iron Ore Royalty Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Labrador Iron Ore Royalty are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Metal Mining industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Labrador Iron Ore Royalty in the Metal Mining industry. Now Labrador Iron Ore Royalty can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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 Labrador Iron Ore Royalty to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Labrador Iron Ore Royalty can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Metal Mining industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
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. Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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. Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Labrador Iron Ore Royalty is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Labrador Iron Ore Royalty has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Metal Mining industry. This can help Labrador Iron Ore Royalty to build a more holistic ecosystem for Labrador Iron Ore Royalty products in the Metal Mining industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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. Labrador Iron Ore Royalty can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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.
Threats Labrador Iron Ore Royalty External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Labrador Iron Ore Royalty are -
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. Labrador Iron Ore Royalty needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Metal Mining industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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 Labrador Iron Ore Royalty prominent markets.
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. Labrador Iron Ore Royalty can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Metal Mining industry are lowering. It can presents Labrador Iron Ore Royalty with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Metal Mining sector.
Environmental challenges
– Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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. Labrador Iron Ore Royalty can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Metal Mining industry.
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 Labrador Iron Ore Royalty in the Metal Mining sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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.
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. Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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.
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 Labrador Iron Ore Royalty business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Labrador Iron Ore Royalty is facing in Metal Mining sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Labrador Iron Ore Royalty has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Metal Mining industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Labrador Iron Ore Royalty needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Metal Mining sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Labrador Iron Ore Royalty Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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 Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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 Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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 Labrador Iron Ore Royalty 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 Labrador Iron Ore Royalty needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.