Tamarack Valley Energy (TVE) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Oil & Gas Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Tamarack Valley Energy (Canada)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Tamarack Valley Energy is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is backlash against globalization,
increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Tamarack Valley Energy
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Tamarack Valley Energy can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Tamarack Valley Energy, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Tamarack Valley 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 Tamarack Valley Energy can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Tamarack Valley Energy
2. Improving business portfolio management of Tamarack Valley Energy
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Canada
4. Making a Oil & Gas Operations sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Tamarack Valley Energy
Strengths of Tamarack Valley Energy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Tamarack Valley Energy are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Tamarack Valley Energy 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Tamarack Valley Energy has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Tamarack Valley 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Tamarack Valley Energy in Oil & Gas Operations industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Tamarack Valley Energy has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Learning organization
- Tamarack Valley 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 Tamarack Valley Energy is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Tamarack Valley Energy emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Tamarack Valley Energy has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Tamarack Valley Energy 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.
High brand equity
– Tamarack Valley Energy has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Tamarack Valley Energy to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management in the Oil & Gas Operations industry
– Tamarack Valley 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Tamarack Valley Energy 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 Tamarack Valley Energy have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Tamarack Valley Energy is one of the most innovative firm in Oil & Gas Operations sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– Tamarack Valley Energy is present in almost all the verticals within the Oil & Gas Operations industry. This has provided Tamarack Valley Energy 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 Oil & Gas Operations industry
– Tamarack Valley Energy has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Tamarack Valley Energy to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Tamarack Valley Energy to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Tamarack Valley Energy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Tamarack Valley Energy are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Tamarack Valley Energy 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Canada, Tamarack Valley Energy needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Tamarack Valley Energy products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Tamarack Valley Energy needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Tamarack Valley Energy is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Tamarack Valley Energy to provide better information regarding Oil & Gas Operations products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Oil & Gas Operations industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Canada, Tamarack Valley Energy 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Tamarack Valley 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 Oil & Gas Operations industry over the last five years. Tamarack Valley 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Tamarack Valley Energy 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 Tamarack Valley Energy lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Tamarack Valley Energy has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Tamarack Valley Energy 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. Tamarack Valley Energy should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Tamarack Valley Energy 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Tamarack Valley Energy needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Oil & Gas Operations industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Tamarack Valley Energy can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Tamarack Valley Energy is planning to shift buying processes online.
Tamarack Valley Energy Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Tamarack Valley Energy are -
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. Tamarack Valley 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. Tamarack Valley 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Tamarack Valley Energy has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Oil & Gas Operations industry. This can help Tamarack Valley Energy to build a more holistic ecosystem for Tamarack Valley Energy products in the Oil & Gas Operations industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Tamarack Valley Energy can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Tamarack Valley Energy to increase its market reach. Tamarack Valley 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Tamarack Valley Energy 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Tamarack Valley Energy 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Tamarack Valley 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 Tamarack Valley 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Tamarack Valley 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 Tamarack Valley Energy to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Tamarack Valley Energy can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Tamarack Valley Energy operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Oil & Gas Operations sector.
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. Tamarack Valley Energy can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Tamarack Valley Energy 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Tamarack Valley 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.
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 Tamarack Valley Energy in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. Now Tamarack Valley Energy can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Tamarack Valley Energy External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Tamarack Valley Energy are -
Regulatory challenges
– Tamarack Valley 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 Oil & Gas Operations industry regulations.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Tamarack Valley Energy is facing in Oil & Gas Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Tamarack Valley Energy has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Tamarack Valley Energy 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.
Environmental challenges
– Tamarack Valley 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. Tamarack Valley Energy can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Oil & Gas Operations industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Oil & Gas Operations industry are lowering. It can presents Tamarack Valley Energy 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Tamarack Valley 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 Oil & Gas Operations industry and other sectors.
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 Tamarack Valley Energy business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Tamarack Valley Energy 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 Tamarack Valley Energy prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Tamarack Valley Energy
– 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 Tamarack Valley Energy.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Tamarack Valley 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 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 Tamarack Valley Energy 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
– Tamarack Valley 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 Tamarack Valley Energy Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Tamarack Valley 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 Tamarack Valley 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 Tamarack Valley 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 Tamarack Valley 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 Tamarack Valley Energy needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.