Ep Energy C (EPE) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Oil & Gas Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ep Energy C (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ep Energy C is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ep Energy C can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ep Energy C, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ep Energy C 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 Ep Energy C can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ep Energy C
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ep Energy C
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 Ep Energy C
Strengths of Ep Energy C | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ep Energy C are -
Learning organization
- Ep Energy C 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 Ep Energy C is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ep Energy C emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Ep Energy C has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ep Energy C to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ep Energy C in the Energy sector have low bargaining power. Ep Energy C has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ep Energy C to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Oil & Gas Operations
– Ep Energy C is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Ep Energy C in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Ep Energy C has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Ep Energy C 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ep Energy C 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ep Energy C has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Oil & Gas Operations industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Ep Energy C have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Oil & Gas Operations industry
– Ep Energy C has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ep Energy C to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ep Energy C to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Oil & Gas Operations industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ep Energy C digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ep Energy C 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
– Ep Energy C is present in almost all the verticals within the Oil & Gas Operations industry. This has provided Ep Energy C 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Ep Energy C 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.
Analytics focus
– Ep Energy C 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.
Weaknesses of Ep Energy C | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ep Energy C are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Ep Energy C has some of the most successful models in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Ep Energy C should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Ep Energy C needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, Ep Energy C 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ep Energy C products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ep Energy C needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
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 Ep Energy C supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Ep Energy C is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Ep Energy C vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Ep Energy C 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Ep Energy C strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Ep Energy C 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Oil & Gas Operations industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Ep Energy C 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 Oil & Gas Operations industry.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Ep Energy C 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 Oil & Gas Operations industry using digital technology.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Ep Energy C 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Ep Energy C 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.
Ep Energy C Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ep Energy C are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ep Energy C has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Oil & Gas Operations sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Ep Energy C to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ep Energy C to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ep Energy C 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Ep Energy C 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Ep Energy C 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.
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. Ep Energy C can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Oil & Gas Operations industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Ep Energy C 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. Ep Energy C 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ep Energy C is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Ep Energy C 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Ep Energy C 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ep Energy C can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ep Energy C has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Oil & Gas Operations industry. This can help Ep Energy C to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ep Energy C 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 Ep Energy C to increase its market reach. Ep Energy C 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ep Energy C 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Ep Energy C 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 Ep Energy C to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Ep Energy C External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ep Energy C are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ep Energy C 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.
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 Ep Energy C.
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. Ep Energy C needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Oil & Gas Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Ep Energy C
– 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 Ep Energy C.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ep Energy C 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 Oil & Gas Operations industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Ep Energy C 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ep Energy C is facing in Oil & Gas Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Ep Energy C business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Ep Energy C has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ep Energy C 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ep Energy C in Oil & Gas Operations industry. The Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Environmental challenges
– Ep Energy C 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. Ep Energy C can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Oil & Gas Operations 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 Ep Energy C in the Oil & Gas Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ep Energy C Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ep Energy C 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 Ep Energy C 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 Ep Energy C 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 Ep Energy C 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 Ep Energy C needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.