Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Oasis Midstream Partners is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Oasis Midstream Partners
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Oasis Midstream Partners can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Oasis Midstream Partners, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Oasis Midstream Partners 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 Oasis Midstream Partners can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Oasis Midstream Partners
2. Improving business portfolio management of Oasis Midstream Partners
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 Oasis Midstream Partners
Strengths of Oasis Midstream Partners | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Oasis Midstream Partners are -
Learning organization
- Oasis Midstream Partners 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 Oasis Midstream Partners is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Oasis Midstream Partners emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Oasis Midstream Partners 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Oasis Midstream Partners 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.
Organizational Resilience of Oasis Midstream Partners
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Oasis Midstream Partners does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Oasis Midstream Partners has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Oasis Midstream Partners to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Oasis Midstream Partners 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Oasis Midstream Partners has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Oasis Midstream Partners 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Oasis Midstream Partners 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry
– Oasis Midstream Partners is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Oasis Midstream Partners has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Oil Well Services & Equipment industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Oasis Midstream Partners have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Oasis Midstream Partners is present in almost all the verticals within the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry. This has provided Oasis Midstream Partners 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.
Analytics focus
– Oasis Midstream Partners 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 Oil Well Services & Equipment 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.
Weaknesses of Oasis Midstream Partners | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Oasis Midstream Partners are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Oasis Midstream Partners 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Oasis Midstream Partners, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Oil Well Services & Equipment industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Oasis Midstream Partners is one of the leading players in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry in last five years.
Skills based hiring in Oil Well Services & Equipment industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Oasis Midstream Partners 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 Oasis Midstream Partners products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Oasis Midstream Partners needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Oasis Midstream Partners 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.
High dependence on Oasis Midstream Partners ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Oasis Midstream Partners 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 Oasis Midstream Partners has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Oasis Midstream Partners 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Oasis Midstream Partners has some of the most successful models in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Oasis Midstream Partners should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Employees’ less understanding of Oasis Midstream Partners strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Oasis Midstream Partners 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Oasis Midstream Partners 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 Oasis Midstream Partners can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Oasis Midstream Partners is planning to shift buying processes online.
Oasis Midstream Partners Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Oasis Midstream Partners are -
Manufacturing automation
– Oasis Midstream Partners can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Oil Well Services & Equipment 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Oil Well Services & Equipment industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Oasis Midstream Partners can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Oasis Midstream Partners is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Oasis Midstream Partners can utilize new technology in the field of Oil Well Services & Equipment industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Oasis Midstream Partners 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Oasis Midstream Partners 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Oasis Midstream Partners 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Oasis Midstream Partners can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Oasis Midstream Partners operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Oil Well Services & Equipment sector.
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 Oasis Midstream Partners 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Oasis Midstream Partners has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Oil Well Services & Equipment sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Oasis Midstream Partners to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Oasis Midstream Partners to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Oasis Midstream Partners 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Oasis Midstream Partners 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Oasis Midstream Partners has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Oil Well Services & Equipment industry. This can help Oasis Midstream Partners to build a more holistic ecosystem for Oasis Midstream Partners products in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Oasis Midstream Partners 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 Oasis Midstream Partners to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Oasis Midstream Partners External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Oasis Midstream Partners are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Oasis Midstream Partners 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 Oil Well Services & Equipment industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Oil Well Services & Equipment industry are lowering. It can presents Oasis Midstream Partners 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.
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 Oasis Midstream Partners business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Oasis Midstream Partners 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.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Oasis Midstream Partners 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 Oil Well Services & Equipment industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Oasis Midstream Partners 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.
Environmental challenges
– Oasis Midstream Partners 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. Oasis Midstream Partners can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry.
Increasing wage structure of Oasis Midstream Partners
– 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 Oasis Midstream Partners.
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 Oasis Midstream Partners in the Oil Well Services & Equipment sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Oasis Midstream Partners is facing in Oil Well Services & Equipment sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Oasis Midstream Partners 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 Oasis Midstream Partners prominent markets.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Oasis Midstream Partners has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Oasis Midstream Partners needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Oil Well Services & Equipment 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Oasis Midstream Partners Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Oasis Midstream Partners 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 Oasis Midstream Partners 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 Oasis Midstream Partners 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 Oasis Midstream Partners 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 Oasis Midstream Partners needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.