Santa Fe Gold Corp (SFEG) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Gold & Silver
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Santa Fe Gold Corp (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Santa Fe Gold Corp is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Santa Fe Gold Corp
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Santa Fe Gold Corp can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Santa Fe Gold Corp, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Santa Fe Gold 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 Santa Fe Gold Corp can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Santa Fe Gold Corp
2. Improving business portfolio management of Santa Fe Gold 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 Santa Fe Gold Corp
Strengths of Santa Fe Gold Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Santa Fe Gold Corp are -
Ability to lead change in Gold & Silver
– Santa Fe Gold Corp is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Gold & Silver industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Santa Fe Gold Corp in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Santa Fe Gold Corp is one of the most innovative firm in Gold & Silver sector.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Santa Fe Gold 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.
Analytics focus
– Santa Fe Gold 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Santa Fe Gold Corp 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Santa Fe Gold Corp in Gold & Silver industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Santa Fe Gold Corp in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Santa Fe Gold Corp has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Santa Fe Gold Corp to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Santa Fe Gold Corp has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Santa Fe Gold Corp to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Gold & Silver industry
– Santa Fe Gold Corp has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Santa Fe Gold Corp to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Gold & Silver industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Santa Fe Gold Corp to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Gold & Silver industry
– Santa Fe Gold 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Santa Fe Gold Corp has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Santa Fe Gold 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.
Organizational Resilience of Santa Fe Gold Corp
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Santa Fe Gold Corp does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of Santa Fe Gold Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Santa Fe Gold Corp are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Santa Fe Gold Corp 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Santa Fe Gold Corp is just above the Gold & Silver 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Gold & Silver industry, Santa Fe Gold 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Santa Fe Gold Corp products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Santa Fe Gold Corp needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High dependence on Santa Fe Gold Corp ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Santa Fe Gold 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 Santa Fe Gold Corp has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ less understanding of Santa Fe Gold Corp strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Santa Fe Gold 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Santa Fe Gold 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Santa Fe Gold Corp 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 Gold & Silver industry using digital technology.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Santa Fe Gold Corp is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Gold & Silver industry, but Santa Fe Gold Corp needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Santa Fe Gold Corp to focus more on services in the Gold & Silver industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Gold & Silver industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Santa Fe Gold Corp 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 Gold & Silver industry.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Santa Fe Gold Corp has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Gold & Silver industry over the last five years. Santa Fe Gold Corp 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.
Santa Fe Gold Corp Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Santa Fe Gold Corp are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Santa Fe Gold 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 Santa Fe Gold Corp to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Santa Fe Gold Corp 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 Santa Fe Gold 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Santa Fe Gold 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Santa Fe Gold 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Santa Fe Gold 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 Santa Fe Gold Corp to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Santa Fe Gold Corp 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
– Santa Fe Gold 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Santa Fe Gold Corp has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Gold & Silver industry. This can help Santa Fe Gold Corp to build a more holistic ecosystem for Santa Fe Gold Corp products in the Gold & Silver industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Santa Fe Gold 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Santa Fe Gold Corp to increase its market reach. Santa Fe Gold 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Santa Fe Gold Corp can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Santa Fe Gold Corp operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Gold & Silver sector.
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. Santa Fe Gold Corp can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Santa Fe Gold Corp is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Santa Fe Gold Corp 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.
Threats Santa Fe Gold Corp External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Santa Fe Gold Corp are -
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. Santa Fe Gold Corp 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.
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. Santa Fe Gold Corp needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Gold & Silver industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Santa Fe Gold Corp in the Gold & Silver sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Gold & Silver industry are lowering. It can presents Santa Fe Gold 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Santa Fe Gold Corp is facing in Gold & Silver sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Santa Fe Gold Corp 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Santa Fe Gold 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.
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 Santa Fe Gold Corp 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, Santa Fe Gold 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 Santa Fe Gold Corp prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Santa Fe Gold 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.
Environmental challenges
– Santa Fe Gold 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. Santa Fe Gold Corp can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Gold & Silver industry.
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 Santa Fe Gold Corp.
Increasing wage structure of Santa Fe Gold Corp
– 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 Santa Fe Gold Corp.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Santa Fe Gold Corp Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Santa Fe Gold 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 Santa Fe Gold 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 Santa Fe Gold 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 Santa Fe Gold 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 Santa Fe Gold Corp needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
