Royal Dutch Shell B ADR (RDSb) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Oil & Gas Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Royal Dutch Shell B ADR (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Royal Dutch Shell B ADR is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices,
increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Royal Dutch Shell B ADR
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Royal Dutch Shell B ADR can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Royal Dutch Shell B ADR, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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 Royal Dutch Shell B ADR can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Royal Dutch Shell B ADR
2. Improving business portfolio management of Royal Dutch Shell B ADR
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Oil & Gas Operations sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Royal Dutch Shell B ADR
Strengths of Royal Dutch Shell B ADR | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Royal Dutch Shell B ADR are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Royal Dutch Shell B ADR has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Oil & Gas Operations industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Royal Dutch Shell B ADR have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Royal Dutch Shell B ADR is one of the most innovative firm in Oil & Gas Operations sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Oil & Gas Operations industry
– Royal Dutch Shell B ADR has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Royal Dutch Shell B ADR to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Royal Dutch Shell B ADR to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Royal Dutch Shell B ADR
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Royal Dutch Shell B ADR does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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 & Gas Operations 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Royal Dutch Shell B ADR in Oil & Gas Operations industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Royal Dutch Shell B ADR has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Royal Dutch Shell B ADR staying ahead in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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.
Ability to lead change in Oil & Gas Operations
– Royal Dutch Shell B ADR is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Royal Dutch Shell B ADR in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the Oil & Gas Operations industry
– Royal Dutch Shell B ADR is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Royal Dutch Shell B ADR has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Royal Dutch Shell B ADR is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Weaknesses of Royal Dutch Shell B ADR | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Royal Dutch Shell B ADR are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Royal Dutch Shell B ADR has some of the most successful models in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Royal Dutch Shell B ADR should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Royal Dutch Shell B ADR needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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 & Gas Operations industry using digital technology.
Lack of clear differentiation of Royal Dutch Shell B ADR products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Royal Dutch Shell B ADR needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Royal Dutch Shell B ADR is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, but Royal Dutch Shell B ADR needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Royal Dutch Shell B ADR to focus more on services in the Oil & Gas Operations industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Royal Dutch Shell B ADR has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
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 Royal Dutch Shell B ADR supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Royal Dutch Shell B ADR is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Royal Dutch Shell B ADR vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ less understanding of Royal Dutch Shell B ADR strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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 to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Royal Dutch Shell B ADR is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in last five years.
Skills based hiring in Oil & Gas Operations industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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.
Royal Dutch Shell B ADR Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Royal Dutch Shell B ADR are -
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. Royal Dutch Shell B ADR can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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 & Gas Operations industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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, Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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 Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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
– Royal Dutch Shell B ADR can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Royal Dutch Shell B ADR has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Oil & Gas Operations sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Royal Dutch Shell B ADR to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Royal Dutch Shell B ADR to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Royal Dutch Shell B ADR has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Oil & Gas Operations industry. This can help Royal Dutch Shell B ADR to build a more holistic ecosystem for Royal Dutch Shell B ADR products in the Oil & Gas Operations industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Oil & Gas Operations industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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. Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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.
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 Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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 Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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 Royal Dutch Shell B ADR to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Royal Dutch Shell B ADR External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Royal Dutch Shell B ADR are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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
– Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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. Royal Dutch Shell B ADR can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Oil & Gas Operations industry.
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 Royal Dutch Shell B ADR business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Royal Dutch Shell B ADR is facing in Oil & Gas Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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 & Gas Operations industry and other sectors.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Royal Dutch Shell B ADR in Oil & Gas Operations industry. The Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Oil & Gas Operations industry are lowering. It can presents Royal Dutch Shell B ADR with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
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 Royal Dutch Shell B ADR.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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 & Gas Operations sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Oil & Gas Operations industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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. Royal Dutch Shell B ADR needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Oil & Gas Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Royal Dutch Shell B ADR Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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 Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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 Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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 Royal Dutch Shell B ADR 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 Royal Dutch Shell B ADR needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.