Mitcham Industries A Pref (MINDP) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Oil Well Services & Equipment
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Mitcham Industries A Pref (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Mitcham Industries A Pref is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Mitcham Industries A Pref
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Mitcham Industries A Pref can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Mitcham Industries A Pref, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Mitcham Industries A Pref 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 Mitcham Industries A Pref can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Mitcham Industries A Pref
2. Improving business portfolio management of Mitcham Industries A Pref
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Oil Well Services & Equipment sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Mitcham Industries A Pref
Strengths of Mitcham Industries A Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Mitcham Industries A Pref are -
Learning organization
- Mitcham Industries A Pref 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 Mitcham Industries A Pref is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Mitcham Industries A Pref emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Mitcham Industries A Pref
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Mitcham Industries A Pref does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Mitcham Industries A Pref 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
– Mitcham Industries A Pref 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Oil Well Services & Equipment industry
– Mitcham Industries A Pref has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Mitcham Industries A Pref to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Mitcham Industries A Pref to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Oil Well Services & Equipment industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Mitcham Industries A Pref digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Mitcham Industries A Pref 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry
– Mitcham Industries A Pref is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Mitcham Industries A Pref comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Oil Well Services & Equipment 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Mitcham Industries A Pref is one of the leading players in the Oil Well Services & Equipment 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Mitcham Industries A Pref in the Energy sector have low bargaining power. Mitcham Industries A Pref has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Mitcham Industries A Pref to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Mitcham Industries A Pref 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Mitcham Industries A Pref has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Mitcham Industries A Pref staying ahead in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of Mitcham Industries A Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Mitcham Industries A Pref are -
Need for greater diversity
– Mitcham Industries A Pref 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Mitcham Industries A Pref needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Mitcham Industries A Pref can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Mitcham Industries A Pref is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Mitcham Industries A Pref has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Mitcham Industries A Pref 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Mitcham Industries A Pref 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 Oil Well Services & Equipment industry using digital technology.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Mitcham Industries A Pref has high operating costs in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Mitcham Industries A Pref lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Mitcham Industries A Pref is just above the Oil Well Services & Equipment 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Mitcham Industries A Pref 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 Well Services & Equipment industry over the last five years. Mitcham Industries A Pref 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Mitcham Industries A Pref needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on Mitcham Industries A Pref ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Mitcham Industries A Pref still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Oil Well Services & Equipment industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Mitcham Industries A Pref has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring in Oil Well Services & Equipment industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Mitcham Industries A Pref 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.
Mitcham Industries A Pref Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Mitcham Industries A Pref are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Mitcham Industries A Pref can develop new processes and procedures in Oil Well Services & Equipment 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Mitcham Industries A Pref 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Mitcham Industries A Pref 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 Mitcham Industries A Pref to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– Mitcham Industries A Pref can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Oil Well Services & Equipment 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.
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. Mitcham Industries A Pref can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 Mitcham Industries A Pref 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Mitcham Industries A Pref 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Mitcham Industries A Pref can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Mitcham Industries A Pref 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 Well Services & Equipment industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Mitcham Industries A Pref 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Mitcham Industries A Pref 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 Mitcham Industries A Pref to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Mitcham Industries A Pref 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Oil Well Services & Equipment industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Mitcham Industries A Pref in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry. Now Mitcham Industries A Pref can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Mitcham Industries A Pref External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Mitcham Industries A Pref are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Oil Well Services & Equipment industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Mitcham Industries A Pref can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Mitcham Industries A Pref 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 Mitcham Industries A Pref prominent markets.
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 Mitcham Industries A Pref business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Oil Well Services & Equipment industry are lowering. It can presents Mitcham Industries A Pref with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Oil Well Services & Equipment sector.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Mitcham Industries A Pref 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Mitcham Industries A Pref 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 Well Services & Equipment 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 Mitcham Industries A Pref.
Environmental challenges
– Mitcham Industries A Pref 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. Mitcham Industries A Pref can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Mitcham Industries A Pref in the Oil Well Services & Equipment sector and impact the bottomline 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Mitcham Industries A Pref 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 Well Services & Equipment industry regulations.
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. Mitcham Industries A Pref needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Mitcham Industries A Pref Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Mitcham Industries A Pref 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 Mitcham Industries A Pref 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 Mitcham Industries A Pref 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 Mitcham Industries A Pref 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 Mitcham Industries A Pref needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.