Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Santo Mining Corp is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Santo Mining Corp
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Santo Mining Corp can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Santo Mining Corp, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Santo Mining Corp operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Santo Mining Corp can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Santo Mining Corp
2. Improving business portfolio management of Santo Mining Corp
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Gold & Silver sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Santo Mining Corp
Strengths of Santo Mining Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Santo Mining Corp are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Santo Mining Corp is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Santo Mining Corp in Gold & Silver industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Santo Mining Corp has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Santo Mining Corp has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Analytics focus
– Santo Mining Corp is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Gold & Silver industry. The technology infrastructure of United States is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Gold & Silver industry
– Santo Mining Corp has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Santo Mining Corp to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Gold & Silver industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Santo Mining Corp to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Santo Mining Corp has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Digital Transformation in Gold & Silver industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Santo Mining Corp digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Santo Mining Corp has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Training and development
– Santo Mining Corp has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Strong track record of project management in the Gold & Silver industry
– Santo Mining Corp is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Santo Mining Corp in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Santo Mining Corp has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Santo Mining Corp to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Santo Mining Corp is present in almost all the verticals within the Gold & Silver industry. This has provided Santo Mining Corp a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Innovation driven organization
– Santo Mining Corp is one of the most innovative firm in Gold & Silver sector.
Weaknesses of Santo Mining Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Santo Mining Corp are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Santo Mining Corp, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Gold & Silver 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Santo Mining Corp needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Santo Mining Corp is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Santo Mining Corp to provide better information regarding Gold & Silver products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High dependence on Santo Mining Corp ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Santo Mining Corp still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Gold & Silver industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Santo Mining Corp has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Santo Mining Corp has some of the most successful models in the Gold & Silver industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Santo Mining Corp should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Santo Mining Corp products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Santo Mining Corp needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Santo Mining Corp is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Gold & Silver industry, but Santo Mining Corp needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Santo Mining Corp to focus more on services in the Gold & Silver industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Santo Mining Corp needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Gold & Silver industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Santo Mining Corp can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Santo Mining Corp is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ less understanding of Santo Mining Corp strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Santo Mining Corp 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Gold & Silver industry, Santo Mining Corp 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Santo Mining Corp is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Gold & Silver industry in last five years.
Santo Mining Corp Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Santo Mining Corp are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Santo Mining Corp can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Santo Mining Corp to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Santo Mining Corp to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Santo Mining Corp 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Santo Mining Corp to increase its market reach. Santo Mining Corp 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Santo Mining Corp to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Manufacturing automation
– Santo Mining Corp can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Gold & Silver 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Santo Mining Corp has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Santo Mining Corp can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Santo Mining Corp operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Gold & Silver sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Santo Mining Corp has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Gold & Silver sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Santo Mining Corp to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Santo Mining Corp to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Santo Mining Corp in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Gold & Silver industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Gold & Silver industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Santo Mining Corp can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Santo Mining Corp can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Buying journey improvements
– Santo Mining Corp can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Gold & Silver 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Santo Mining Corp can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Santo Mining Corp External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Santo Mining Corp are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Santo Mining Corp is facing in Gold & Silver sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Santo Mining Corp needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Gold & Silver industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Santo Mining Corp 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Santo Mining Corp can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate Santo Mining Corp prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Gold & Silver industry are lowering. It can presents Santo Mining Corp with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Gold & Silver sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Santo Mining Corp may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Gold & Silver sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Gold & Silver industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Santo Mining Corp can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Santo Mining Corp 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. Santo Mining Corp can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Gold & Silver industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Santo Mining Corp has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Gold & Silver industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Santo Mining Corp needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Gold & Silver sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
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 Santo Mining Corp in the Gold & Silver sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Santo Mining Corp needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Gold & Silver industry regulations.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Santo Mining Corp can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Gold & Silver industry.
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 Santo Mining Corp business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Santo Mining Corp Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Santo Mining Corp needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of Santo Mining Corp is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of Santo Mining Corp is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Santo Mining Corp to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Santo Mining Corp needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.