Nickel Creek Platinum (NCP) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Metal Mining
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Nickel Creek Platinum (Canada)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Nickel Creek Platinum is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Nickel Creek Platinum
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Nickel Creek Platinum can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Nickel Creek Platinum, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Nickel Creek Platinum 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 Nickel Creek Platinum can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Nickel Creek Platinum
2. Improving business portfolio management of Nickel Creek Platinum
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Canada
4. Making a Metal Mining sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Nickel Creek Platinum
Strengths of Nickel Creek Platinum | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Nickel Creek Platinum are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Nickel Creek Platinum has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Nickel Creek Platinum staying ahead in the Metal Mining industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Nickel Creek Platinum 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.
Organizational Resilience of Nickel Creek Platinum
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Nickel Creek Platinum does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Nickel Creek Platinum in Metal Mining industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Nickel Creek Platinum are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Nickel Creek Platinum is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Nickel Creek Platinum is present in almost all the verticals within the Metal Mining industry. This has provided Nickel Creek Platinum 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.
Analytics focus
– Nickel Creek Platinum 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 Metal Mining 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Metal Mining industry
– Nickel Creek Platinum has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Nickel Creek Platinum to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Metal Mining industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Nickel Creek Platinum to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Nickel Creek Platinum 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 Nickel Creek Platinum is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Nickel Creek Platinum emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Metal Mining industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Nickel Creek Platinum digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Nickel Creek Platinum 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
– Nickel Creek Platinum has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Nickel Creek Platinum to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of Nickel Creek Platinum | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Nickel Creek Platinum are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Nickel Creek Platinum 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 Metal Mining industry, Nickel Creek Platinum 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 Nickel Creek Platinum needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Metal Mining industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Nickel Creek Platinum can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Nickel Creek Platinum is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Nickel Creek Platinum, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Metal Mining 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 Canada, Nickel Creek Platinum needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Nickel Creek Platinum is just above the Metal Mining 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Nickel Creek Platinum has some of the most successful models in the Metal Mining industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Nickel Creek Platinum should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Nickel Creek Platinum is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Metal Mining industry, but Nickel Creek Platinum needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Nickel Creek Platinum to focus more on services in the Metal Mining industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Metal Mining industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Canada, Nickel Creek Platinum is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Metal Mining industry.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Nickel Creek Platinum, in the dynamic environment of Metal Mining industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Nickel Creek Platinum has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on Nickel Creek Platinum ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Nickel Creek Platinum still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Metal Mining industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Nickel Creek Platinum has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Nickel Creek Platinum Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Nickel Creek Platinum are -
Manufacturing automation
– Nickel Creek Platinum can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Metal Mining 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Nickel Creek Platinum in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Metal Mining industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Nickel Creek Platinum 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 Nickel Creek Platinum to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Nickel Creek Platinum 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Metal Mining industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Nickel Creek Platinum can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Nickel Creek Platinum 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Nickel Creek Platinum has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Metal Mining industry. This can help Nickel Creek Platinum to build a more holistic ecosystem for Nickel Creek Platinum products in the Metal Mining industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Nickel Creek Platinum can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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 Nickel Creek Platinum 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 Metal Mining industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Nickel Creek Platinum 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. Nickel Creek Platinum 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Nickel Creek Platinum 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Metal Mining industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Nickel Creek Platinum in the Metal Mining industry. Now Nickel Creek Platinum can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Nickel Creek Platinum can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Metal Mining 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.
Threats Nickel Creek Platinum External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Nickel Creek Platinum are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Nickel Creek Platinum 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 Nickel Creek Platinum prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Nickel Creek Platinum 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 Metal Mining industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Nickel Creek Platinum may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Metal Mining sector.
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 Nickel Creek Platinum.
Environmental challenges
– Nickel Creek Platinum 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. Nickel Creek Platinum can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Metal Mining industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Metal Mining industry are lowering. It can presents Nickel Creek Platinum with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Metal Mining sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Nickel Creek Platinum in Metal Mining industry. The Metal Mining 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Nickel Creek Platinum 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Nickel Creek Platinum is facing in Metal Mining sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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 Nickel Creek Platinum business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Nickel Creek Platinum has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Metal Mining industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Nickel Creek Platinum needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Metal Mining 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Metal Mining industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Nickel Creek Platinum can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Nickel Creek Platinum Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Nickel Creek Platinum 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 Nickel Creek Platinum 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 Nickel Creek Platinum 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 Nickel Creek Platinum 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 Nickel Creek Platinum needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.