Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Nevada Gold Corp is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Nevada Gold Corp can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Nevada Gold Corp, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Nevada Gold Corp 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 Nevada Gold Corp can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Nevada Gold Corp
2. Improving business portfolio management of Nevada Gold Corp
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 Nevada Gold Corp
Strengths of Nevada Gold Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Nevada Gold Corp are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Nevada Gold Corp 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Gold & Silver industry
– Nevada Gold Corp has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Nevada Gold Corp to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Gold & Silver industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Nevada Gold Corp to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Nevada Gold Corp is present in almost all the verticals within the Gold & Silver industry. This has provided Nevada Gold Corp 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Nevada Gold Corp has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Nevada Gold Corp 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Nevada Gold Corp 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 Nevada Gold Corp have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Nevada Gold Corp 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.
Organizational Resilience of Nevada Gold Corp
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Nevada Gold Corp does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Gold & Silver industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Nevada Gold Corp digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Nevada Gold Corp 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Nevada Gold Corp is one of the most innovative firm in Gold & Silver sector.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Nevada Gold Corp 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Nevada Gold Corp in Gold & Silver industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Nevada Gold Corp 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.
Weaknesses of Nevada Gold Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Nevada Gold Corp are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Nevada Gold Corp 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 Nevada Gold Corp lucrative customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Nevada Gold Corp 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 Nevada Gold Corp can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Nevada Gold Corp is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Nevada Gold Corp is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Gold & Silver industry in last five years.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Nevada Gold Corp is just above the Gold & Silver industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
High 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 Nevada Gold Corp supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Nevada Gold Corp is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Nevada Gold Corp vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High dependence on Nevada Gold Corp ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Nevada Gold Corp 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 Nevada Gold Corp 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, Nevada Gold Corp is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Nevada Gold Corp to provide better information regarding Gold & Silver products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Nevada Gold Corp 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.
Skills based hiring in Gold & Silver industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Nevada Gold Corp 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Nevada Gold Corp, in the dynamic environment of Gold & Silver industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Nevada Gold Corp has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Nevada Gold Corp 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.
Nevada Gold Corp Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Nevada Gold Corp are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Nevada Gold Corp has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Gold & Silver industry. This can help Nevada Gold Corp to build a more holistic ecosystem for Nevada Gold Corp products in the Gold & Silver industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Nevada Gold Corp 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
– Nevada Gold Corp 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Nevada Gold Corp 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 Nevada Gold Corp to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Nevada Gold Corp 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Nevada Gold Corp 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Gold & Silver industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Nevada Gold Corp in the Gold & Silver industry. Now Nevada Gold Corp can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Nevada Gold Corp 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.
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. Nevada Gold Corp 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. Nevada Gold Corp 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Nevada Gold Corp is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Nevada Gold Corp 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.
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. Nevada Gold Corp 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
– Nevada Gold Corp 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 Nevada Gold Corp to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Nevada Gold Corp 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 Nevada Gold Corp can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Nevada Gold Corp External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Nevada Gold Corp are -
Increasing wage structure of Nevada Gold Corp
– 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 Nevada Gold Corp.
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 Nevada Gold Corp business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Nevada Gold Corp can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Gold & Silver industry.
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. Nevada Gold Corp can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Nevada Gold Corp 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Nevada Gold Corp 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Nevada Gold Corp 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 Nevada Gold Corp prominent markets.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Nevada Gold Corp has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Gold & Silver industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Nevada Gold Corp 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Nevada Gold Corp 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 Nevada Gold Corp 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.
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 Nevada Gold Corp in the Gold & Silver sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Nevada Gold Corp needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Gold & Silver industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Nevada Gold Corp Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Nevada Gold Corp 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 Nevada Gold Corp 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 Nevada Gold Corp 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 Nevada Gold Corp 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 Nevada Gold Corp needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.