SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for TriMetals Mining (Canada)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , TriMetals Mining is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that TriMetals Mining can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the TriMetals Mining, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which TriMetals Mining 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 TriMetals Mining can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of TriMetals Mining
2. Improving business portfolio management of TriMetals Mining
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Canada
4. Making a Gold & Silver sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of TriMetals Mining
Strengths of TriMetals Mining | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of TriMetals Mining are -
High brand equity
– TriMetals Mining has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled TriMetals Mining to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– TriMetals Mining is present in almost all the verticals within the Gold & Silver industry. This has provided TriMetals Mining 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– TriMetals Mining has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Gold & Silver industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of TriMetals Mining have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Gold & Silver industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For TriMetals Mining digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. TriMetals Mining 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of TriMetals Mining in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. TriMetals Mining has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps TriMetals Mining to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– TriMetals Mining has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – TriMetals Mining staying ahead in the Gold & Silver industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- TriMetals Mining 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 TriMetals Mining is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at TriMetals Mining emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of TriMetals Mining comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Gold & Silver 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– TriMetals Mining has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. TriMetals Mining 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 Gold & Silver industry
– TriMetals Mining has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled TriMetals Mining to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Gold & Silver industry. The sustainable margins have also helped TriMetals Mining to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of TriMetals Mining
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing TriMetals Mining does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– TriMetals Mining is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver 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.
Weaknesses of TriMetals Mining | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of TriMetals Mining are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
TriMetals Mining has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Gold & Silver industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at TriMetals Mining, in the dynamic environment of Gold & Silver industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. TriMetals Mining has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on TriMetals Mining ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of TriMetals Mining 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 TriMetals Mining has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, TriMetals Mining is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help TriMetals Mining to provide better information regarding Gold & Silver products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that TriMetals Mining 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 TriMetals Mining can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as TriMetals Mining is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As TriMetals Mining 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.
Need for greater diversity
– TriMetals Mining 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Gold & Silver industry, TriMetals Mining 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Canada, TriMetals Mining needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though TriMetals Mining 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. TriMetals Mining should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of TriMetals Mining products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, TriMetals Mining needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
TriMetals Mining Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of TriMetals Mining are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, TriMetals Mining 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for TriMetals Mining 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Gold & Silver industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. TriMetals Mining can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. TriMetals Mining can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at TriMetals Mining can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Gold & Silver industry.
Buying journey improvements
– TriMetals Mining 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, TriMetals Mining can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that TriMetals Mining operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Gold & Silver sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, TriMetals Mining is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. TriMetals Mining can utilize new technology in the field of Gold & Silver 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 TriMetals Mining has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Gold & Silver industry. This can help TriMetals Mining to build a more holistic ecosystem for TriMetals Mining products in the Gold & Silver industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– TriMetals Mining 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
– TriMetals Mining 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.
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 TriMetals Mining 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– TriMetals Mining 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.
Threats TriMetals Mining External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of TriMetals Mining are -
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. TriMetals Mining needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Gold & Silver industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Gold & Silver industry are lowering. It can presents TriMetals Mining with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Gold & Silver sector.
Environmental challenges
– TriMetals Mining 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. TriMetals Mining can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Gold & Silver industry.
Increasing wage structure of TriMetals Mining
– 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 TriMetals Mining.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– TriMetals Mining has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Gold & Silver industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, TriMetals Mining 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.
Regulatory challenges
– TriMetals Mining 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.
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 TriMetals Mining business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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. TriMetals Mining 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.
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.
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 TriMetals Mining in the Gold & Silver sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, TriMetals Mining 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 TriMetals Mining prominent markets.
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. TriMetals Mining can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on TriMetals Mining 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 Gold & Silver industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of TriMetals Mining Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at TriMetals Mining 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 TriMetals Mining 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 TriMetals Mining 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 TriMetals Mining 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 TriMetals Mining needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.