Toscana Energy (TEI) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Oil & Gas - Integrated
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Toscana Energy (Canada)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Toscana Energy is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Toscana Energy can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Toscana Energy, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Toscana Energy 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 Toscana Energy can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Toscana Energy
2. Improving business portfolio management of Toscana Energy
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Canada
4. Making a Oil & Gas - Integrated sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Toscana Energy
Strengths of Toscana Energy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Toscana Energy are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Toscana Energy in the Energy sector have low bargaining power. Toscana Energy has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Toscana Energy to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Toscana Energy has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Toscana Energy 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Toscana Energy is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Digital Transformation in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Toscana Energy digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Toscana Energy 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Toscana Energy comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Toscana Energy is present in almost all the verticals within the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. This has provided Toscana Energy 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
– Toscana Energy is one of the most innovative firm in Oil & Gas - Integrated sector.
High brand equity
– Toscana Energy has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Toscana Energy to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– Toscana Energy has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Toscana Energy to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Toscana Energy to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– Toscana Energy is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Toscana Energy 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Toscana Energy in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Toscana Energy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Toscana Energy are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Toscana Energy needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Toscana Energy can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Toscana Energy is planning to shift buying processes online.
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 Toscana Energy supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Toscana Energy is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Toscana Energy vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Toscana Energy is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry in last five years.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Toscana Energy, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Toscana Energy 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.
Skills based hiring in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Toscana Energy 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Canada, Toscana Energy needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on Toscana Energy ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Toscana Energy still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Toscana Energy has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Toscana Energy is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry, but Toscana Energy needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Toscana Energy to focus more on services in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Toscana Energy has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry over the last five years. Toscana Energy 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Toscana Energy is just above the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Toscana Energy Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Toscana Energy are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Toscana Energy in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Toscana Energy in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. Now Toscana Energy can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Toscana Energy 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Toscana Energy can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Toscana Energy can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Toscana Energy 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 Toscana Energy to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Toscana Energy 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 Oil & Gas - Integrated industry.
Developing new processes and practices
– Toscana Energy can develop new processes and procedures in Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Toscana Energy is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Toscana Energy can utilize new technology in the field of Oil & Gas - Integrated industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Toscana Energy can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Toscana Energy has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Oil & Gas - Integrated sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Toscana Energy to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Toscana Energy to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Toscana Energy 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. Toscana Energy 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Toscana Energy 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 Toscana Energy to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Toscana Energy External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Toscana Energy are -
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 Toscana Energy business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Toscana Energy has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Toscana Energy needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Toscana Energy 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 Oil & Gas - Integrated industry and other sectors.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Toscana Energy is facing in Oil & Gas - Integrated sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Toscana Energy in the Oil & Gas - Integrated sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Toscana Energy 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. Toscana Energy can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Toscana Energy 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 Toscana Energy prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Toscana Energy 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Toscana Energy may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Oil & Gas - Integrated sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Toscana Energy 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 Oil & Gas - Integrated industry regulations.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Toscana Energy can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Toscana Energy
– 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 Toscana Energy.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Toscana Energy Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Toscana Energy 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 Toscana Energy 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 Toscana Energy 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 Toscana Energy 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 Toscana Energy needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.