SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Dundee Precious Metals (Canada)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Dundee Precious Metals is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Dundee Precious Metals
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Dundee Precious Metals can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dundee Precious Metals, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dundee Precious Metals 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 Dundee Precious Metals can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Dundee Precious Metals
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dundee Precious Metals
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Canada
4. Making a Gold & Silver sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Dundee Precious Metals
Strengths of Dundee Precious Metals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Dundee Precious Metals are -
Strong track record of project management in the Gold & Silver industry
– Dundee Precious Metals is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- Dundee Precious Metals 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 Dundee Precious Metals is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Dundee Precious Metals emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Dundee Precious Metals in Gold & Silver 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 Dundee Precious Metals 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Dundee Precious Metals is present in almost all the verticals within the Gold & Silver industry. This has provided Dundee Precious Metals 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Gold & Silver industry
– Dundee Precious Metals has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Dundee Precious Metals to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Gold & Silver industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Dundee Precious Metals to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Gold & Silver
– Dundee Precious Metals is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver industry in Canada. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Gold & Silver industry in Canada but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Dundee Precious Metals in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Dundee Precious Metals comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Gold & Silver 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Dundee Precious Metals is one of the most innovative firm in Gold & Silver sector.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Dundee Precious Metals has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Dundee Precious Metals 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.
High brand equity
– Dundee Precious Metals has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Dundee Precious Metals to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Dundee Precious Metals has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Dundee Precious Metals staying ahead in the Gold & Silver industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of Dundee Precious Metals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Dundee Precious Metals are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Dundee Precious Metals is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Dundee Precious Metals to provide better information regarding Gold & Silver products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring in Gold & Silver industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Dundee Precious Metals has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Dundee Precious Metals, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Gold & Silver 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 Dundee Precious Metals has some of the most successful models in the Gold & Silver industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Dundee Precious Metals should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Dundee Precious Metals 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Dundee Precious Metals has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Gold & Silver industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Dundee Precious Metals is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Gold & Silver industry in last five years.
High dependence on Dundee Precious Metals ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Dundee Precious Metals still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Gold & Silver industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Dundee Precious Metals has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Dundee Precious Metals 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Dundee Precious Metals has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Gold & Silver industry over the last five years. Dundee Precious Metals 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 Canada, Dundee Precious Metals needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Dundee Precious Metals Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Dundee Precious Metals are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Dundee Precious Metals 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 Dundee Precious Metals to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Dundee Precious Metals has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Gold & Silver industry. This can help Dundee Precious Metals to build a more holistic ecosystem for Dundee Precious Metals products in the Gold & Silver industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Dundee Precious Metals can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Dundee Precious Metals operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Gold & Silver sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Dundee Precious Metals is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Dundee Precious Metals can utilize new technology in the field of Gold & Silver industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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 Dundee Precious Metals 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Dundee Precious Metals can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Dundee Precious Metals has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Gold & Silver sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Dundee Precious Metals to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Dundee Precious Metals to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Dundee Precious Metals can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Gold & Silver 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Dundee Precious Metals can develop new processes and procedures in Gold & Silver 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Dundee Precious Metals 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 Gold & Silver industry.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Dundee Precious Metals 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 Dundee Precious Metals 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 Gold & Silver industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Dundee Precious Metals in the Gold & Silver industry. Now Dundee Precious Metals can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Dundee Precious Metals 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.
Threats Dundee Precious Metals External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Dundee Precious Metals are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Dundee Precious Metals 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.
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. Dundee Precious Metals 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Dundee Precious Metals may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Gold & Silver sector.
Environmental challenges
– Dundee Precious Metals 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. Dundee Precious Metals can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Gold & Silver industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Dundee Precious Metals 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 Gold & Silver industry and other sectors.
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 Dundee Precious Metals business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Dundee Precious Metals in Gold & Silver industry. The Gold & Silver 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Gold & Silver industry are lowering. It can presents Dundee Precious Metals with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Gold & Silver sector.
Increasing wage structure of Dundee Precious Metals
– 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 Dundee Precious Metals.
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 Dundee Precious Metals in the Gold & Silver sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Dundee Precious Metals needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Gold & Silver industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Gold & Silver industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Dundee Precious Metals can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Dundee Precious Metals 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 Dundee Precious Metals prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Dundee Precious Metals Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Dundee Precious Metals 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 Dundee Precious Metals 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 Dundee Precious Metals 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 Dundee Precious Metals 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 Dundee Precious Metals needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.