Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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 Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining
2. Improving business portfolio management of Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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 Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining
Strengths of Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining are -
Innovation driven organization
– Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining is one of the most innovative firm in Gold & Silver sector.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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.
Organizational Resilience of Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Gold & Silver
– Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Gold & Silver industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Gold & Silver industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Gold & Silver industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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.
Learning organization
- Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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 Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Gold & Silver industry
– Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Gold & Silver industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining 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.
Weaknesses of Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Gold & Silver industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining, in the dynamic environment of Gold & Silver industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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 Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining lucrative customers.
Skills based hiring in Gold & Silver industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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. Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Gold & Silver industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Gold & Silver industry over the last five years. Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining 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.
Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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, Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Gold & Silver sector.
Manufacturing automation
– Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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.
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. Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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. Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Gold & Silver industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining 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 Gold & Silver industry.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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 Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining can utilize new technology in the field of Gold & Silver industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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. Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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 Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining are -
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. Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Gold & Silver industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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 Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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.
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 Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Gold & Silver industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Gold & Silver 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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining is facing in Gold & Silver sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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 Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining prominent markets.
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. Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Gold & Silver industry are lowering. It can presents Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Gold & Silver sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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 Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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 Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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 Mansfield-Martin Exploration 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 Mansfield-Martin Exploration Mining needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.