SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Geoglobal Resources (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Geoglobal Resources is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Geoglobal Resources
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Geoglobal Resources can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Geoglobal Resources, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Geoglobal Resources operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Geoglobal Resources can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Geoglobal Resources
2. Improving business portfolio management of Geoglobal Resources
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 Geoglobal Resources
Strengths of Geoglobal Resources | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Geoglobal Resources are -
High brand equity
– Geoglobal Resources has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Geoglobal Resources to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Geoglobal Resources is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Geoglobal Resources is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Geoglobal Resources emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Geoglobal Resources in Oil & Gas Operations industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Geoglobal Resources 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
– Geoglobal Resources 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Geoglobal Resources in the Energy sector have low bargaining power. Geoglobal Resources has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Geoglobal Resources to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Geoglobal Resources has one of the best training and development program in Energy 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Geoglobal Resources has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Geoglobal Resources staying ahead in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Geoglobal Resources is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the 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
– Geoglobal Resources is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Oil & Gas Operations industry
– Geoglobal Resources has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Geoglobal Resources to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Geoglobal Resources to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Geoglobal Resources 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 Geoglobal Resources have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Geoglobal Resources | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Geoglobal Resources are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Geoglobal Resources is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, but Geoglobal Resources needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Geoglobal Resources to focus more on services in the Oil & Gas Operations industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Geoglobal Resources, 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Geoglobal Resources 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. Geoglobal Resources should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Geoglobal Resources 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. Geoglobal Resources 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Geoglobal Resources needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Geoglobal Resources 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 Geoglobal Resources lucrative customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Geoglobal Resources 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.
High dependence on Geoglobal Resources ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Geoglobal Resources 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 Geoglobal Resources has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Geoglobal Resources has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Geoglobal Resources 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Geoglobal Resources 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.
Geoglobal Resources Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Geoglobal Resources are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Geoglobal Resources has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Oil & Gas Operations industry. This can help Geoglobal Resources to build a more holistic ecosystem for Geoglobal Resources products in the Oil & Gas Operations industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Geoglobal Resources 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Geoglobal Resources can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Geoglobal Resources can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help Geoglobal Resources to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Oil & Gas Operations industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Geoglobal Resources in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. Now Geoglobal Resources can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Geoglobal Resources 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.
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. Geoglobal Resources can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Geoglobal Resources 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Geoglobal Resources can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Oil & Gas Operations industry.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Geoglobal Resources can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
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. Geoglobal Resources can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Geoglobal Resources to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Geoglobal Resources 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 Geoglobal Resources External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Geoglobal Resources are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Geoglobal Resources demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Oil & Gas Operations industry and other sectors.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Geoglobal Resources has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Geoglobal Resources 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.
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.
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 Geoglobal Resources.
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. Geoglobal Resources needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Oil & Gas Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Oil & Gas Operations industry are lowering. It can presents Geoglobal Resources with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Oil & Gas Operations sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Geoglobal Resources 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Geoglobal Resources high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Increasing wage structure of Geoglobal Resources
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Geoglobal Resources.
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.
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 Geoglobal Resources 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. Geoglobal Resources 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Oil & Gas Operations industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Geoglobal Resources can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Geoglobal Resources Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Geoglobal Resources needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of Geoglobal Resources is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of Geoglobal Resources is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Geoglobal Resources to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Geoglobal Resources needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.