St Augustine (SAU) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for St Augustine (Canada)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , St Augustine is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of St Augustine

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that St Augustine can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the St Augustine, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which St Augustine 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of St Augustine can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of St Augustine
2. Improving business portfolio management of St Augustine
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 St Augustine

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Strengths of St Augustine | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of St Augustine are -

Digital Transformation in Gold & Silver industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For St Augustine digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. St Augustine 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.

Analytics focus

– St Augustine 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 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.

Learning organization

- St Augustine 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 St Augustine is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at St Augustine emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of St Augustine 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the St Augustine 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.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Gold & Silver industry

– St Augustine has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled St Augustine to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Gold & Silver industry. The sustainable margins have also helped St Augustine to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Training and development

– St Augustine 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 St Augustine

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing St Augustine does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Ability to recruit top talent

– St Augustine 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of St Augustine in Gold & Silver industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– St Augustine has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – St Augustine 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Gold & Silver industry

– St Augustine is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

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Weaknesses of St Augustine | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of St Augustine are -

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, St Augustine has high operating costs in the Gold & Silver industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract St Augustine lucrative customers.

High dependence on existing supply chain

– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of St Augustine supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, St Augustine is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left St Augustine vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Gold & Silver industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Canada, St Augustine 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.

Skills based hiring in Gold & Silver industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at St Augustine 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that St Augustine 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 St Augustine can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as St Augustine is planning to shift buying processes online.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of St Augustine is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Gold & Silver industry, but St Augustine needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help St Augustine to focus more on services in the Gold & Silver industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, St Augustine is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help St Augustine to provide better information regarding Gold & Silver products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, St Augustine 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. St Augustine 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.

Employees’ less understanding of St Augustine strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of St Augustine 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.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, St Augustine 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Canada, St Augustine needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

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St Augustine Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of St Augustine are -

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– St Augustine 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 St Augustine to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help St Augustine to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, St Augustine is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. St Augustine 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, St Augustine 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.

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. St Augustine can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

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 St Augustine 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 St Augustine to increase its market reach. St Augustine 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at St Augustine 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects St Augustine can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Loyalty marketing

– St Augustine 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, St Augustine 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 St Augustine to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Manufacturing automation

– St Augustine 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– St Augustine 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, St Augustine can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that St Augustine operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Gold & Silver sector.

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Threats St Augustine External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of St Augustine are -

Increasing wage structure of St Augustine

– 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 St Augustine.

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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– St Augustine 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.

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 St Augustine.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, St Augustine 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 St Augustine prominent markets.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, St Augustine 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.

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.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– St Augustine 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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on St Augustine 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.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for St Augustine in Gold & Silver industry. The Gold & Silver 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.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Gold & Silver industry are lowering. It can presents St Augustine with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Gold & Silver sector.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– St Augustine has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Gold & Silver industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, St Augustine 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.

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. St Augustine 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of St Augustine Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at St Augustine 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 St Augustine 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 St Augustine 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 St Augustine 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 St Augustine needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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