One Gas Inc (OGS) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Natural Gas Utilities
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for One Gas Inc (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , One Gas Inc is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, wage bills are increasing, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that One Gas Inc can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the One Gas Inc, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which One Gas Inc 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 One Gas Inc can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of One Gas Inc
2. Improving business portfolio management of One Gas Inc
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Natural Gas Utilities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of One Gas Inc
Strengths of One Gas Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of One Gas Inc are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– One Gas Inc is one of the leading players in the Natural Gas Utilities 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– One Gas Inc has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Natural Gas Utilities industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of One Gas Inc have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– One Gas Inc has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled One Gas Inc to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of One Gas Inc
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing One Gas Inc does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of One Gas Inc in the Utilities sector have low bargaining power. One Gas Inc has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps One Gas Inc to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Natural Gas Utilities industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For One Gas Inc digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. One Gas Inc 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that One Gas Inc 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the One Gas Inc 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Natural Gas Utilities industry
– One Gas Inc has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled One Gas Inc to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Natural Gas Utilities industry. The sustainable margins have also helped One Gas Inc to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- One Gas Inc 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 One Gas Inc is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at One Gas Inc emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– One Gas Inc has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – One Gas Inc staying ahead in the Natural Gas Utilities industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of One Gas Inc in Natural Gas Utilities industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of One Gas Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of One Gas Inc are -
Need for greater diversity
– One Gas Inc 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, One Gas Inc is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help One Gas Inc to provide better information regarding Natural Gas Utilities products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, One Gas Inc needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on One Gas Inc ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of One Gas Inc still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Natural Gas Utilities industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though One Gas Inc has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that One Gas Inc needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Natural Gas Utilities industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at One Gas Inc can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as One Gas Inc is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring in Natural Gas Utilities industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at One Gas Inc 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 One Gas Inc products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, One Gas Inc needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, One Gas Inc 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of One Gas Inc is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Natural Gas Utilities industry, but One Gas Inc needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help One Gas Inc to focus more on services in the Natural Gas Utilities industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, One Gas Inc has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Natural Gas Utilities industry over the last five years. One Gas Inc 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
One Gas Inc has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Natural Gas Utilities industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
One Gas Inc Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of One Gas Inc are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of One Gas Inc has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Natural Gas Utilities industry. This can help One Gas Inc to build a more holistic ecosystem for One Gas Inc products in the Natural Gas Utilities industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– One Gas Inc can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Natural Gas Utilities 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.
Loyalty marketing
– One Gas Inc 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, One Gas Inc 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for One Gas Inc 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 One Gas Inc to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, One Gas Inc can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that One Gas Inc operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Natural Gas Utilities sector.
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. One Gas Inc can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– One Gas Inc 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Natural Gas Utilities industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. One Gas Inc can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, One Gas Inc 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 One Gas Inc to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, One Gas Inc is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. One Gas Inc can utilize new technology in the field of Natural Gas Utilities industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Natural Gas Utilities industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. One Gas Inc 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. One Gas Inc 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for One Gas Inc in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Natural Gas Utilities industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats One Gas Inc External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of One Gas Inc are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, One Gas Inc may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Natural Gas Utilities sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– One Gas Inc has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Natural Gas Utilities industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, One Gas Inc needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Natural Gas Utilities 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Natural Gas Utilities industry are lowering. It can presents One Gas Inc with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Natural Gas Utilities sector.
Increasing wage structure of One Gas Inc
– 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 One Gas Inc.
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 One Gas Inc in the Natural Gas Utilities sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Natural Gas Utilities industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. One Gas Inc can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. One Gas Inc needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Natural Gas Utilities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that One Gas Inc is facing in Natural Gas Utilities sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– One Gas Inc 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.
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 One Gas Inc business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– One Gas Inc 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 Natural Gas Utilities 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, One Gas Inc 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 One Gas Inc prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of One Gas Inc Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at One Gas Inc 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 One Gas Inc 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 One Gas Inc 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 One Gas Inc 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 One Gas Inc needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
