Liberty One Lithium (LRTTF) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Oil & Gas - Integrated
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Liberty One Lithium (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Liberty One Lithium is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices, technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Liberty One Lithium
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Liberty One Lithium can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Liberty One Lithium, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Liberty One Lithium 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 Liberty One Lithium can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Liberty One Lithium
2. Improving business portfolio management of Liberty One Lithium
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Oil & Gas - Integrated sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Liberty One Lithium
Strengths of Liberty One Lithium | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Liberty One Lithium are -
High brand equity
– Liberty One Lithium has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Liberty One Lithium to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Liberty One Lithium 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.
Training and development
– Liberty One Lithium has one of the best training and development program in Energy industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Liberty One Lithium in the Energy sector have low bargaining power. Liberty One Lithium has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Liberty One Lithium to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Liberty One Lithium has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Liberty One Lithium staying ahead in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Oil & Gas - Integrated
– Liberty One Lithium is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Liberty One Lithium in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– Liberty One Lithium has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Liberty One Lithium to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Liberty One Lithium to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Liberty One Lithium comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Analytics focus
– Liberty One Lithium is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Liberty One Lithium 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 - Integrated industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Liberty One Lithium have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Liberty One Lithium is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– Liberty One Lithium is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Liberty One Lithium | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Liberty One Lithium are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Liberty One Lithium, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Oil & Gas - Integrated 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 dependence on Liberty One Lithium ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Liberty One Lithium still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Liberty One Lithium has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Liberty One Lithium is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry, but Liberty One Lithium needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Liberty One Lithium to focus more on services in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Liberty One Lithium has high operating costs in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Liberty One Lithium lucrative customers.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Liberty One Lithium is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Liberty One Lithium to provide better information regarding Oil & Gas - Integrated products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Liberty One Lithium is just above the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Liberty One Lithium 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 - Integrated industry.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Liberty One Lithium 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Liberty One Lithium 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 - Integrated industry over the last five years. Liberty One Lithium 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.
Skills based hiring in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Liberty One Lithium 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Liberty One Lithium has some of the most successful models in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Liberty One Lithium should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Liberty One Lithium Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Liberty One Lithium are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Liberty One Lithium can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry.
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. Liberty One Lithium can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Liberty One Lithium 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Liberty One Lithium in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Liberty One Lithium 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. Liberty One Lithium 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Liberty One Lithium 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Liberty One Lithium can develop new processes and procedures in Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Liberty One Lithium can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Liberty One Lithium operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Oil & Gas - Integrated sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Liberty One Lithium has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. This can help Liberty One Lithium to build a more holistic ecosystem for Liberty One Lithium products in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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 Liberty One Lithium 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Liberty One Lithium 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 Liberty One Lithium to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Liberty One Lithium 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Liberty One Lithium can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Liberty One Lithium External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Liberty One Lithium are -
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 Liberty One Lithium business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Liberty One Lithium 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 - Integrated industry and other sectors.
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 Liberty One Lithium in the Oil & Gas - Integrated sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Liberty One Lithium 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 - Integrated sector.
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. Liberty One Lithium 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Liberty One Lithium 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 Oil & Gas - Integrated industry.
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 Liberty One Lithium.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Liberty One Lithium 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.
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.
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.
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. Liberty One Lithium needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Liberty One Lithium 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 - Integrated industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of Liberty One Lithium
– 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 Liberty One Lithium.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Liberty One Lithium Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Liberty One Lithium 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 Liberty One Lithium 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 Liberty One Lithium 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 Liberty One Lithium 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 Liberty One Lithium needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
