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Granite Oil (GXO) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Granite Oil (Canada)


Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Granite Oil is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Granite Oil


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Granite Oil can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Granite Oil, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Granite Oil 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 Granite Oil can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Granite Oil
2. Improving business portfolio management of Granite Oil
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Canada
4. Making a Oil & Gas Operations sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Granite Oil




Strengths of Granite Oil | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Granite Oil are -

Organizational Resilience of Granite Oil

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Granite Oil does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Innovation driven organization

– Granite Oil is one of the most innovative firm in Oil & Gas Operations sector.

Analytics focus

– Granite Oil 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 Canada 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.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Granite Oil in the Energy sector have low bargaining power. Granite Oil has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Granite Oil to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Granite Oil has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Granite Oil 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Oil & Gas Operations industry

– Granite Oil 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

– Granite Oil has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Granite Oil 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.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Oil & Gas Operations industry

– Granite Oil has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Granite Oil to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Granite Oil to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Learning organization

- Granite Oil 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 Granite Oil is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Granite Oil emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Training and development

– Granite Oil 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 recruit top talent

– Granite Oil is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in Canada. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Canada. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Ability to lead change in Oil & Gas Operations

– Granite Oil is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in Canada. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in Canada but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Granite Oil in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.






Weaknesses of Granite Oil | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Granite Oil are -

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Granite Oil has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Oil & Gas Operations industry over the last five years. Granite Oil 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.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Granite Oil 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.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, Granite Oil needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Granite Oil needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Oil & Gas Operations industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Granite Oil can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Granite Oil is planning to shift buying processes online.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Granite Oil, in the dynamic environment of Oil & Gas Operations industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Granite Oil has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Granite Oil is just above the Oil & Gas Operations 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.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Granite Oil is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, but Granite Oil needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Granite Oil to focus more on services in the Oil & Gas Operations industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Employees’ less understanding of Granite Oil strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Granite Oil 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.

Need for greater diversity

– Granite Oil 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 cash cycle compare to competitors

Granite Oil 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 Granite Oil ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Granite Oil still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Oil & Gas Operations industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Granite Oil has relatively successful track record of launching new products.




Granite Oil Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The opportunities of Granite Oil are -

Loyalty marketing

– Granite Oil 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Granite Oil 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 Granite Oil to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Granite Oil to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

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 Granite Oil 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.

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. Granite Oil 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. Granite Oil 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 Granite Oil 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Granite Oil to increase its market reach. Granite Oil 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Granite Oil can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Granite Oil operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Oil & Gas Operations sector.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Granite Oil 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Granite Oil 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Granite Oil 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.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Oil & Gas Operations industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Granite Oil 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, Granite Oil is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Granite Oil can utilize new technology in the field of Oil & Gas Operations industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Granite Oil has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Oil & Gas Operations industry. This can help Granite Oil to build a more holistic ecosystem for Granite Oil products in the Oil & Gas Operations industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.




Threats Granite Oil External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats of Granite Oil are -

Environmental challenges

– Granite Oil 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. Granite Oil can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Oil & Gas Operations industry.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Granite Oil 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.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Oil & Gas Operations industry are lowering. It can presents Granite Oil 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.

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. Granite Oil 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.

Increasing wage structure of Granite Oil

– 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 Granite Oil.

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 Granite Oil.

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 Granite Oil business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Regulatory challenges

– Granite Oil 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 Oil & Gas Operations industry regulations.

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 Granite Oil in the Oil & Gas Operations 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. Granite Oil needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Oil & Gas Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Granite Oil 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 Granite Oil prominent markets.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Granite Oil is facing in Oil & Gas Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of Granite Oil Template, Example


Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Granite Oil 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 Granite Oil 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 Granite Oil 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 Granite Oil 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 Granite Oil needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.



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