SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Tidewater Midstream (Canada)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Tidewater Midstream is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Tidewater Midstream
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Tidewater Midstream can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Tidewater Midstream, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Tidewater Midstream 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 Tidewater Midstream can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Tidewater Midstream
2. Improving business portfolio management of Tidewater Midstream
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Canada
4. Making a Natural Gas Utilities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Tidewater Midstream
Strengths of Tidewater Midstream | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Tidewater Midstream are -
Training and development
– Tidewater Midstream has one of the best training and development program in Utilities 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Tidewater Midstream is present in almost all the verticals within the Natural Gas Utilities industry. This has provided Tidewater Midstream 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Tidewater Midstream 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Natural Gas Utilities industry
– Tidewater Midstream has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Tidewater Midstream to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Natural Gas Utilities industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Tidewater Midstream to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Tidewater Midstream in Natural Gas Utilities industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Tidewater Midstream 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 Tidewater Midstream is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Tidewater Midstream emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Tidewater Midstream has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Tidewater Midstream to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Tidewater Midstream has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Natural Gas Utilities industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Tidewater Midstream have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Tidewater Midstream is one of the leading players in the Natural Gas Utilities industry in Canada. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Canada. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Organizational Resilience of Tidewater Midstream
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Tidewater Midstream does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Tidewater Midstream 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.
Digital Transformation in Natural Gas Utilities industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Tidewater Midstream digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Tidewater Midstream 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.
Weaknesses of Tidewater Midstream | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Tidewater Midstream are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Natural Gas Utilities industry, Tidewater Midstream 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Tidewater Midstream has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Natural Gas Utilities industry using digital technology.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Canada, Tidewater Midstream needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Tidewater Midstream has some of the most successful models in the Natural Gas Utilities industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Tidewater Midstream should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Need for greater diversity
– Tidewater Midstream 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Tidewater Midstream, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Natural Gas Utilities 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Natural Gas Utilities industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Canada, Tidewater Midstream 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 Natural Gas Utilities industry.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Tidewater Midstream, in the dynamic environment of Natural Gas Utilities industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Tidewater Midstream has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Tidewater Midstream is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Tidewater Midstream to provide better information regarding Natural Gas Utilities products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Tidewater Midstream products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Tidewater Midstream needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ less understanding of Tidewater Midstream strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Tidewater Midstream don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Tidewater Midstream Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Tidewater Midstream are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Tidewater Midstream 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 Tidewater Midstream to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Tidewater Midstream has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Natural Gas Utilities industry. This can help Tidewater Midstream to build a more holistic ecosystem for Tidewater Midstream products in the Natural Gas Utilities industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Tidewater Midstream 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.
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. Tidewater Midstream can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Tidewater Midstream 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 Tidewater Midstream to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Tidewater Midstream can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Natural Gas Utilities 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Tidewater Midstream in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Natural Gas Utilities industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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 Tidewater Midstream 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Tidewater Midstream can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Natural Gas Utilities 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 Tidewater Midstream 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 Natural Gas Utilities industry.
Loyalty marketing
– Tidewater Midstream 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Tidewater Midstream to increase its market reach. Tidewater Midstream 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 Tidewater Midstream 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 Tidewater Midstream External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Tidewater Midstream are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Tidewater Midstream 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 Tidewater Midstream prominent markets.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Tidewater Midstream 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 Natural Gas Utilities industry and other sectors.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Natural Gas Utilities industry are lowering. It can presents Tidewater Midstream with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Natural Gas Utilities sector.
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. Tidewater Midstream needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Natural Gas Utilities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Tidewater Midstream 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. Tidewater Midstream can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Natural Gas Utilities industry.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Tidewater Midstream in the Natural Gas Utilities sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Tidewater Midstream 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.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Tidewater Midstream
– 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 Tidewater Midstream.
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 Tidewater Midstream.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Tidewater Midstream has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Natural Gas Utilities industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Tidewater Midstream needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Natural Gas Utilities sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Tidewater Midstream in Natural Gas Utilities industry. The Natural Gas Utilities 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Tidewater Midstream Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Tidewater Midstream 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 Tidewater Midstream 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 Tidewater Midstream 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 Tidewater Midstream 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 Tidewater Midstream needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.