Sixty Six Oilfield (SSOF) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sixty Six Oilfield (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sixty Six Oilfield is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Sixty Six Oilfield
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Sixty Six Oilfield can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sixty Six Oilfield, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sixty Six Oilfield 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 Sixty Six Oilfield can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sixty Six Oilfield
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sixty Six Oilfield
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 Sixty Six Oilfield
Strengths of Sixty Six Oilfield | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sixty Six Oilfield are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sixty Six Oilfield has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sixty Six Oilfield 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Sixty Six Oilfield has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sixty Six Oilfield to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sixty Six Oilfield to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Sixty Six Oilfield has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sixty Six Oilfield to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Sixty Six Oilfield has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Sixty Six Oilfield 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.
Organizational Resilience of Sixty Six Oilfield
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Sixty Six Oilfield does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Sixty Six Oilfield 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 Sixty Six Oilfield is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Sixty Six Oilfield emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Sixty Six Oilfield digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Sixty Six Oilfield 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sixty Six Oilfield has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Sixty Six Oilfield staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Sixty Six Oilfield is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Sixty Six Oilfield 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sixty Six Oilfield 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 Sixty Six Oilfield | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sixty Six Oilfield are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Sixty Six Oilfield 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Sixty Six Oilfield 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. Sixty Six Oilfield should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Sixty Six Oilfield, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sixty Six Oilfield has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Sixty Six Oilfield 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Sixty Six Oilfield needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Sixty Six Oilfield is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Sixty Six Oilfield needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Sixty Six Oilfield to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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 Sixty Six Oilfield supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Sixty Six Oilfield is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Sixty Six Oilfield vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Sixty Six Oilfield 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Sixty Six Oilfield has high operating costs in the industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Sixty Six Oilfield lucrative customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Sixty Six Oilfield 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.
High dependence on Sixty Six Oilfield ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Sixty Six Oilfield still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Sixty Six Oilfield has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Sixty Six Oilfield Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Sixty Six Oilfield are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Sixty Six Oilfield 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Sixty Six Oilfield can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sixty Six Oilfield 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 Sixty Six Oilfield to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Sixty Six Oilfield can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sixty Six Oilfield has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Sixty Six Oilfield to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sixty Six Oilfield to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sixty Six Oilfield can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sixty Six Oilfield operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Sixty Six Oilfield 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 Sixty Six Oilfield to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Sixty Six Oilfield 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sixty Six Oilfield can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Sixty Six Oilfield has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Sixty Six Oilfield to build a more holistic ecosystem for Sixty Six Oilfield 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. Sixty Six Oilfield 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. Sixty Six Oilfield 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.
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. Sixty Six Oilfield 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, Sixty Six Oilfield is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sixty Six Oilfield 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.
Threats Sixty Six Oilfield External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Sixty Six Oilfield are -
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sixty Six Oilfield 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 industry and other sectors.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sixty Six Oilfield is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Sixty Six Oilfield
– 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 Sixty Six Oilfield.
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. Sixty Six Oilfield can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Sixty Six Oilfield 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 industry regulations.
Environmental challenges
– Sixty Six Oilfield 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. Sixty Six Oilfield can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
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. Sixty Six Oilfield 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 Sixty Six Oilfield.
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 Sixty Six Oilfield business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sixty Six Oilfield 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Sixty Six Oilfield with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sixty Six Oilfield Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Sixty Six Oilfield 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 Sixty Six Oilfield 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 Sixty Six Oilfield 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 Sixty Six Oilfield 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 Sixty Six Oilfield needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.