Lake Victoria Mining (LVCA) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Gold & Silver
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Lake Victoria Mining (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Lake Victoria Mining is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Lake Victoria Mining
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Lake Victoria Mining can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Lake Victoria Mining, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Lake Victoria Mining 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 Lake Victoria Mining can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Lake Victoria Mining
2. Improving business portfolio management of Lake Victoria Mining
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Gold & Silver sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Lake Victoria Mining
Strengths of Lake Victoria Mining | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Lake Victoria Mining are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Lake Victoria Mining 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Lake Victoria Mining has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Lake Victoria Mining staying ahead in the Gold & Silver industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Lake Victoria Mining in Gold & Silver industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Lake Victoria Mining
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Lake Victoria Mining does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management in the Gold & Silver industry
– Lake Victoria Mining is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Lake Victoria Mining is present in almost all the verticals within the Gold & Silver industry. This has provided Lake Victoria Mining 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.
Digital Transformation in Gold & Silver industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Lake Victoria Mining digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Lake Victoria Mining 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Lake Victoria Mining comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Gold & Silver industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Learning organization
- Lake Victoria Mining 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 Lake Victoria Mining is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Lake Victoria Mining emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Lake Victoria Mining has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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
– Lake Victoria Mining 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 Gold & Silver 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Lake Victoria Mining has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Lake Victoria Mining 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.
Weaknesses of Lake Victoria Mining | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Lake Victoria Mining are -
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 Lake Victoria Mining supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Lake Victoria Mining is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Lake Victoria Mining vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Lake Victoria Mining has high operating costs in the Gold & Silver industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Lake Victoria Mining lucrative customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Lake Victoria Mining 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Gold & Silver industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Lake Victoria Mining 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 Gold & Silver industry.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Lake Victoria Mining 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.
Skills based hiring in Gold & Silver industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Lake Victoria Mining 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Lake Victoria Mining 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 Gold & Silver industry using digital technology.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Lake Victoria Mining needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Gold & Silver industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Lake Victoria Mining can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Lake Victoria Mining is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Lake Victoria Mining has some of the most successful models in the Gold & Silver industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Lake Victoria Mining should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Lake Victoria Mining is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Gold & Silver industry, but Lake Victoria Mining needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Lake Victoria Mining to focus more on services in the Gold & Silver industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Lake Victoria Mining is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Lake Victoria Mining to provide better information regarding Gold & Silver products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lake Victoria Mining Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Lake Victoria Mining are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Lake Victoria Mining can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Lake Victoria Mining operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Gold & Silver sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– Lake Victoria Mining can develop new processes and procedures in Gold & Silver industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Lake Victoria Mining in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Gold & Silver industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Lake Victoria Mining can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Gold & Silver 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Lake Victoria Mining can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Gold & Silver industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Lake Victoria Mining 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 Lake Victoria Mining to increase its market reach. Lake Victoria Mining 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.
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 Lake Victoria Mining 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Lake Victoria Mining has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Gold & Silver industry. This can help Lake Victoria Mining to build a more holistic ecosystem for Lake Victoria Mining products in the Gold & Silver industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Lake Victoria Mining has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Gold & Silver sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Lake Victoria Mining to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Lake Victoria Mining to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Lake Victoria Mining 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Gold & Silver industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Lake Victoria Mining 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. Lake Victoria Mining 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Lake Victoria Mining 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.
Threats Lake Victoria Mining External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Lake Victoria Mining are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Gold & Silver industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Lake Victoria Mining can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Lake Victoria Mining
– 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 Lake Victoria Mining.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Lake Victoria Mining may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Gold & Silver sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Lake Victoria Mining demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Gold & Silver industry and other sectors.
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. Lake Victoria Mining 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Lake Victoria Mining 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Lake Victoria Mining is facing in Gold & Silver sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Lake Victoria Mining needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Gold & Silver industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Lake Victoria Mining 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 Gold & Silver industry regulations.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Lake Victoria Mining in Gold & Silver industry. The Gold & Silver industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
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 Lake Victoria Mining 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, Lake Victoria Mining 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 Lake Victoria Mining prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Lake Victoria Mining Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Lake Victoria Mining 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 Lake Victoria Mining 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 Lake Victoria Mining 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 Lake Victoria Mining 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 Lake Victoria Mining needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
