Empire Diversified Energy (MPIR) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Construction - Raw Materials
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Empire Diversified Energy (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Empire Diversified Energy 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%, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Empire Diversified Energy
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Empire Diversified Energy can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Empire Diversified Energy, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Empire Diversified Energy 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 Empire Diversified Energy can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Empire Diversified Energy
2. Improving business portfolio management of Empire Diversified Energy
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Construction - Raw Materials sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Empire Diversified Energy
Strengths of Empire Diversified Energy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Empire Diversified Energy are -
Organizational Resilience of Empire Diversified Energy
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Empire Diversified Energy does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Empire Diversified Energy is one of the most innovative firm in Construction - Raw Materials sector.
High brand equity
– Empire Diversified Energy has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Empire Diversified Energy to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Empire Diversified Energy 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Empire Diversified Energy in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Empire Diversified Energy has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Empire Diversified Energy to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Empire Diversified Energy in Construction - Raw Materials industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Empire Diversified Energy has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Construction - Raw Materials industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Empire Diversified Energy have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Empire Diversified Energy has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Empire Diversified Energy 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Empire Diversified Energy has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Empire Diversified Energy staying ahead in the Construction - Raw Materials industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Empire Diversified Energy comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Construction - Raw Materials 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
– Empire Diversified Energy is one of the leading players in the Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Training and development
– Empire Diversified Energy has one of the best training and development program in Capital Goods 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.
Weaknesses of Empire Diversified Energy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Empire Diversified Energy are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Empire Diversified Energy 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 Construction - Raw Materials industry using digital technology.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Empire Diversified Energy is just above the Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Empire Diversified Energy products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Empire Diversified Energy needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ less understanding of Empire Diversified Energy strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Empire Diversified Energy don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Empire Diversified Energy has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Construction - Raw Materials industry over the last five years. Empire Diversified Energy 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Construction - Raw Materials industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Empire Diversified Energy 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 Construction - Raw Materials industry.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Empire Diversified Energy is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Construction - Raw Materials industry, but Empire Diversified Energy needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Empire Diversified Energy to focus more on services in the Construction - Raw Materials industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Empire Diversified Energy needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Empire Diversified Energy needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Construction - Raw Materials industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Empire Diversified Energy can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Empire Diversified Energy is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Empire Diversified Energy is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Empire Diversified Energy to provide better information regarding Construction - Raw Materials products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Empire Diversified Energy 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.
Empire Diversified Energy Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Empire Diversified Energy are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Empire Diversified Energy to increase its market reach. Empire Diversified Energy 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Construction - Raw Materials industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Empire Diversified Energy in the Construction - Raw Materials industry. Now Empire Diversified Energy can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Empire Diversified Energy 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Empire Diversified Energy 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.
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 Empire Diversified Energy 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Empire Diversified Energy in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Construction - Raw Materials industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Empire Diversified Energy can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Empire Diversified Energy has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Construction - Raw Materials industry. This can help Empire Diversified Energy to build a more holistic ecosystem for Empire Diversified Energy products in the Construction - Raw Materials industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Empire Diversified Energy can develop new processes and procedures in Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Construction - Raw Materials industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Empire Diversified Energy can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Empire Diversified Energy has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Construction - Raw Materials sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Empire Diversified Energy to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Empire Diversified Energy to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Empire Diversified Energy 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 Empire Diversified Energy to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Empire Diversified Energy 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.
Threats Empire Diversified Energy External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Empire Diversified Energy are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Empire Diversified Energy in Construction - Raw Materials industry. The Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Increasing wage structure of Empire Diversified Energy
– 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 Empire Diversified Energy.
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. Empire Diversified Energy needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Construction - Raw Materials industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Empire Diversified Energy.
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 Empire Diversified Energy in the Construction - Raw Materials 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, Empire Diversified Energy may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Construction - Raw Materials 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. Empire Diversified Energy 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.
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
– Empire Diversified Energy 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 Construction - Raw Materials industry regulations.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Empire Diversified Energy business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Empire Diversified Energy has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Construction - Raw Materials industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Empire Diversified Energy needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Construction - Raw Materials industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Empire Diversified Energy can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Empire Diversified Energy Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Empire Diversified Energy 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 Empire Diversified Energy 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 Empire Diversified Energy 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 Empire Diversified Energy 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 Empire Diversified Energy needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.