SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Greenland Minerals&Energy (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Greenland Minerals&Energy is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Greenland Minerals&Energy
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Greenland Minerals&Energy can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Greenland Minerals&Energy, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Greenland Minerals&Energy 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 Greenland Minerals&Energy can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Greenland Minerals&Energy
2. Improving business portfolio management of Greenland Minerals&Energy
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Metal Mining sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Greenland Minerals&Energy
Strengths of Greenland Minerals&Energy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Greenland Minerals&Energy are -
Strong track record of project management in the Metal Mining industry
– Greenland Minerals&Energy is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Metal Mining industry
– Greenland Minerals&Energy has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Greenland Minerals&Energy to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Metal Mining industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Greenland Minerals&Energy to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Greenland Minerals&Energy has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Greenland Minerals&Energy 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.
Learning organization
- Greenland Minerals&Energy 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 Greenland Minerals&Energy is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Greenland Minerals&Energy emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Greenland Minerals&Energy has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Metal Mining industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Greenland Minerals&Energy have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Greenland Minerals&Energy has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Greenland Minerals&Energy to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Greenland Minerals&Energy has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Greenland Minerals&Energy 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.
Organizational Resilience of Greenland Minerals&Energy
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Greenland Minerals&Energy does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Metal Mining industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Greenland Minerals&Energy digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Greenland Minerals&Energy 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Greenland Minerals&Energy 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Greenland Minerals&Energy in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Greenland Minerals&Energy has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Greenland Minerals&Energy to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Metal Mining
– Greenland Minerals&Energy is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Metal Mining industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Greenland Minerals&Energy in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Greenland Minerals&Energy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Greenland Minerals&Energy are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Greenland Minerals&Energy has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Metal Mining industry over the last five years. Greenland Minerals&Energy 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.
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 Greenland Minerals&Energy supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Greenland Minerals&Energy is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Greenland Minerals&Energy vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Greenland Minerals&Energy is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Metal Mining industry, but Greenland Minerals&Energy needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Greenland Minerals&Energy to focus more on services in the Metal Mining industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Greenland Minerals&Energy 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. Greenland Minerals&Energy should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Greenland Minerals&Energy products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Greenland Minerals&Energy needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Metal Mining industry, Greenland Minerals&Energy 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Greenland Minerals&Energy has high operating costs in the Metal Mining industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Greenland Minerals&Energy lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Greenland Minerals&Energy, in the dynamic environment of Metal Mining industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Greenland Minerals&Energy has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Greenland Minerals&Energy needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Greenland Minerals&Energy 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Greenland Minerals&Energy is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Metal Mining industry in last five years.
Greenland Minerals&Energy Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Greenland Minerals&Energy are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Greenland Minerals&Energy is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Greenland Minerals&Energy 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.
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. Greenland Minerals&Energy can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Greenland Minerals&Energy can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Greenland Minerals&Energy operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Metal Mining sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Greenland Minerals&Energy 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.
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. Greenland Minerals&Energy 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. Greenland Minerals&Energy 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Greenland Minerals&Energy to increase its market reach. Greenland Minerals&Energy 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Greenland Minerals&Energy 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Greenland Minerals&Energy 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.
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. Greenland Minerals&Energy can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Greenland Minerals&Energy 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 Greenland Minerals&Energy to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Greenland Minerals&Energy in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Metal Mining industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Developing new processes and practices
– Greenland Minerals&Energy 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Greenland Minerals&Energy 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 Greenland Minerals&Energy 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 Greenland Minerals&Energy External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Greenland Minerals&Energy are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Greenland Minerals&Energy 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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Greenland Minerals&Energy is facing in Metal Mining sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Greenland Minerals&Energy can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Greenland Minerals&Energy needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Metal Mining industry regulations.
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 Greenland Minerals&Energy in the Metal Mining sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Greenland Minerals&Energy has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Metal Mining industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Greenland Minerals&Energy 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Greenland Minerals&Energy 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Greenland Minerals&Energy may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Metal Mining sector.
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 Greenland Minerals&Energy.
Environmental challenges
– Greenland Minerals&Energy 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. Greenland Minerals&Energy can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Metal Mining industry.
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. Greenland Minerals&Energy 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Greenland Minerals&Energy 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Greenland Minerals&Energy Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Greenland Minerals&Energy 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 Greenland Minerals&Energy 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 Greenland Minerals&Energy 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 Greenland Minerals&Energy 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 Greenland Minerals&Energy needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.