SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Serabi Gold (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Serabi Gold is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Serabi Gold can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Serabi Gold, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Serabi Gold 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 Serabi Gold can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Serabi Gold
2. Improving business portfolio management of Serabi Gold
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 Serabi Gold
Strengths of Serabi Gold | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Serabi Gold are -
Analytics focus
– Serabi Gold 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Gold & Silver industry
– Serabi Gold is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Serabi Gold has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Serabi Gold 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.
High brand equity
– Serabi Gold has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Serabi Gold to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Serabi Gold 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Gold & Silver industry
– Serabi Gold has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Serabi Gold to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Gold & Silver industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Serabi Gold to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Serabi Gold is present in almost all the verticals within the Gold & Silver industry. This has provided Serabi Gold 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Serabi Gold is one of the most innovative firm in Gold & Silver sector.
Ability to lead change in Gold & Silver
– Serabi Gold 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 Serabi Gold in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Serabi Gold 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.
Digital Transformation in Gold & Silver industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Serabi Gold digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Serabi Gold 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Serabi Gold 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.
Weaknesses of Serabi Gold | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Serabi Gold are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Serabi Gold 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Serabi Gold 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 Serabi Gold lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Serabi Gold needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring in Gold & Silver industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Serabi Gold 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Serabi Gold 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. Serabi Gold should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Serabi Gold is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Gold & Silver industry, but Serabi Gold needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Serabi Gold to focus more on services in the Gold & Silver industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on Serabi Gold ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Serabi Gold 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 Serabi Gold has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Serabi Gold 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Serabi Gold 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 Serabi Gold can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Serabi Gold is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Serabi Gold, in the dynamic environment of Gold & Silver industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Serabi Gold has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Serabi Gold, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Gold & Silver 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.
Serabi Gold Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Serabi Gold are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Gold & Silver industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Serabi Gold in the Gold & Silver industry. Now Serabi Gold can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Serabi Gold 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 Serabi Gold to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Serabi Gold 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 Serabi Gold 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Serabi Gold can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Serabi Gold operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Gold & Silver sector.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Serabi Gold 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Gold & Silver industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Serabi Gold 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. Serabi Gold 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Serabi Gold can develop new processes and procedures in Gold & Silver industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Serabi Gold 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
– Serabi Gold 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Serabi Gold 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 Serabi Gold to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Serabi Gold 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 Serabi Gold has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Gold & Silver industry. This can help Serabi Gold to build a more holistic ecosystem for Serabi Gold products in the Gold & Silver industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Serabi Gold 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 Serabi Gold External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Serabi Gold are -
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 Serabi Gold in the Gold & Silver sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Serabi Gold 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Serabi Gold 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.
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 Serabi Gold business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Serabi Gold 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.
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. Serabi Gold needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Gold & Silver industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Serabi Gold 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. Serabi Gold can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Gold & Silver industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Gold & Silver industry are lowering. It can presents Serabi Gold with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Gold & Silver sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Serabi Gold 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.
Increasing wage structure of Serabi Gold
– 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 Serabi Gold.
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. Serabi Gold can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Serabi Gold 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 Serabi Gold prominent markets.
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 Serabi Gold.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Serabi Gold Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Serabi Gold 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 Serabi Gold 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 Serabi Gold 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 Serabi Gold 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 Serabi Gold needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
