Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Scorpio Tankers Note is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
technology disruption, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Scorpio Tankers Note
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Scorpio Tankers Note can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Scorpio Tankers Note, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Scorpio Tankers Note 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 Scorpio Tankers Note can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Scorpio Tankers Note
2. Improving business portfolio management of Scorpio Tankers Note
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Scorpio Tankers Note
Strengths of Scorpio Tankers Note | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Scorpio Tankers Note are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Scorpio Tankers Note has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Scorpio Tankers Note to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Scorpio Tankers Note to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Scorpio Tankers Note in the sector have low bargaining power. Scorpio Tankers Note has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Scorpio Tankers Note to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Scorpio Tankers Note digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Scorpio Tankers Note 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.
High brand equity
– Scorpio Tankers Note has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Scorpio Tankers Note to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Scorpio Tankers Note has one of the best training and development program in 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Scorpio Tankers Note is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– Scorpio Tankers Note is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Scorpio Tankers Note 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Scorpio Tankers Note is one of the leading players in the 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.
Learning organization
- Scorpio Tankers Note 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 Scorpio Tankers Note is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Scorpio Tankers Note emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Scorpio Tankers Note
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Scorpio Tankers Note does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Scorpio Tankers Note comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Scorpio Tankers Note has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Scorpio Tankers Note have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Scorpio Tankers Note | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Scorpio Tankers Note are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Scorpio Tankers Note 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Scorpio Tankers Note 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 industry using digital technology.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Scorpio Tankers Note is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Scorpio Tankers Note 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Scorpio Tankers Note 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Scorpio Tankers Note has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Scorpio Tankers Note should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Scorpio Tankers Note is just above the 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Scorpio Tankers Note products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Scorpio Tankers Note needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Scorpio Tankers Note is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Scorpio Tankers Note to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Scorpio Tankers Note, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Scorpio Tankers Note has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Scorpio Tankers Note has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Scorpio Tankers Note 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.
Scorpio Tankers Note Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Scorpio Tankers Note are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Scorpio Tankers Note in the industry. Now Scorpio Tankers Note can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Scorpio Tankers Note 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 Scorpio Tankers Note in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Scorpio Tankers Note can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Scorpio Tankers Note can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Scorpio Tankers Note 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Scorpio Tankers Note can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Scorpio Tankers Note 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 industry.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Scorpio Tankers Note has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Scorpio Tankers Note to build a more holistic ecosystem for Scorpio Tankers Note products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Scorpio Tankers Note 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. Scorpio Tankers Note 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Scorpio Tankers Note can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Scorpio Tankers Note operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Scorpio Tankers Note is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Scorpio Tankers Note can utilize new technology in the field of industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Scorpio Tankers Note 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 Scorpio Tankers Note 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 Scorpio Tankers Note External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Scorpio Tankers Note are -
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.
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 Scorpio Tankers Note business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Scorpio Tankers Note 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 Scorpio Tankers Note prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Scorpio Tankers Note 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 industry.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Scorpio Tankers Note is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Scorpio Tankers Note 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. Scorpio Tankers Note can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Scorpio Tankers Note with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Scorpio Tankers Note can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Scorpio Tankers Note
– 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 Scorpio Tankers Note.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Scorpio Tankers Note 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.
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. Scorpio Tankers Note needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Scorpio Tankers Note.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Scorpio Tankers Note Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Scorpio Tankers Note 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 Scorpio Tankers Note 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 Scorpio Tankers Note 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 Scorpio Tankers Note 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 Scorpio Tankers Note needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.