Iron Mountain (IRM) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Iron Mountain (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Iron Mountain is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Iron Mountain

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Iron Mountain can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Iron Mountain, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Iron Mountain 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Iron Mountain can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Iron Mountain
2. Improving business portfolio management of Iron Mountain
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Misc. Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Iron Mountain

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Strengths of Iron Mountain | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Iron Mountain are -

Training and development

– Iron Mountain has one of the best training and development program in Transportation 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.

Analytics focus

– Iron Mountain 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 Misc. Transportation 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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Iron Mountain is one of the leading players in the Misc. Transportation 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.

Ability to lead change in Misc. Transportation

– Iron Mountain is one of the leading players in the Misc. Transportation industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Transportation industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Iron Mountain in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Innovation driven organization

– Iron Mountain is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Transportation sector.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Iron Mountain in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. Iron Mountain has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Iron Mountain to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Iron Mountain has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Iron Mountain staying ahead in the Misc. Transportation industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Iron Mountain has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Iron Mountain 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

– Iron Mountain has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Iron Mountain to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Organizational Resilience of Iron Mountain

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Iron Mountain 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 Iron Mountain 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

– Iron Mountain is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Transportation industry. This has provided Iron Mountain 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.

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Weaknesses of Iron Mountain | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Iron Mountain are -

Need for greater diversity

– Iron Mountain 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.

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 Iron Mountain supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Iron Mountain is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Iron Mountain vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Iron Mountain 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 Misc. Transportation industry using digital technology.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Iron Mountain is just above the Misc. Transportation 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.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Iron Mountain 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Iron Mountain needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Transportation industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Iron Mountain can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Iron Mountain is planning to shift buying processes online.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Iron Mountain is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Iron Mountain to provide better information regarding Misc. Transportation products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Iron Mountain is one of the leading players in the Misc. Transportation industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Transportation industry in last five years.

High dependence on Iron Mountain ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Iron Mountain still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Transportation industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Iron Mountain has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Iron Mountain is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Transportation industry, but Iron Mountain needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Iron Mountain to focus more on services in the Misc. Transportation industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Iron Mountain has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Transportation industry over the last five years. Iron Mountain 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.

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Iron Mountain Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Iron Mountain are -

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Iron Mountain can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

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 Iron Mountain 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Iron Mountain can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Iron Mountain operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Transportation sector.

Loyalty marketing

– Iron Mountain 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Iron Mountain has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Transportation sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Iron Mountain to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Iron Mountain to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Iron Mountain in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Transportation industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Iron Mountain has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Transportation industry. This can help Iron Mountain to build a more holistic ecosystem for Iron Mountain products in the Misc. Transportation industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Iron Mountain 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 Iron Mountain to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Iron Mountain 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Iron Mountain 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 Iron Mountain to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Iron Mountain 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

– Iron Mountain can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Transportation 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Iron Mountain to increase its market reach. Iron Mountain 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.

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Threats Iron Mountain External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Iron Mountain are -

Consumer confidence and its impact on Iron Mountain 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 Misc. Transportation industry and other sectors.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Iron Mountain can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Misc. Transportation 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. Iron Mountain 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.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Iron Mountain in Misc. Transportation industry. The Misc. Transportation 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.

Environmental challenges

– Iron Mountain 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. Iron Mountain can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Transportation industry.

Increasing wage structure of Iron Mountain

– 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 Iron Mountain.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Transportation industry are lowering. It can presents Iron Mountain with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Transportation 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. Iron Mountain needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Transportation industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Iron Mountain has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Transportation industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Iron Mountain needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Transportation 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.

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 Iron Mountain business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Misc. Transportation industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Iron Mountain can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Iron Mountain 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Iron Mountain Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Iron Mountain 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 Iron Mountain 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 Iron Mountain 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 Iron Mountain 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 Iron Mountain needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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