Sundance Energy Australia (SEA) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Oil & Gas Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sundance Energy Australia (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sundance Energy Australia is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Sundance Energy Australia
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Sundance Energy Australia can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sundance Energy Australia, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sundance Energy Australia 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 Sundance Energy Australia can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sundance Energy Australia
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sundance Energy Australia
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Oil & Gas Operations sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Sundance Energy Australia
Strengths of Sundance Energy Australia | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sundance Energy Australia are -
Training and development
– Sundance Energy Australia has one of the best training and development program in Energy 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.
Ability to lead change in Oil & Gas Operations
– Sundance Energy Australia is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Sundance Energy Australia 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
– Sundance Energy Australia is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in Australia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Australia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Digital Transformation in Oil & Gas Operations industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Sundance Energy Australia digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Sundance Energy Australia 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Oil & Gas Operations industry
– Sundance Energy Australia has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sundance Energy Australia to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sundance Energy Australia to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sundance Energy Australia 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Sundance Energy Australia comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Organizational Resilience of Sundance Energy Australia
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Sundance Energy Australia does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sundance Energy Australia has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Sundance Energy Australia staying ahead in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Sundance Energy Australia 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Sundance Energy Australia is one of the most innovative firm in Oil & Gas Operations sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Oil & Gas Operations industry
– Sundance Energy Australia is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Sundance Energy Australia | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sundance Energy Australia are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Sundance Energy Australia needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ less understanding of Sundance Energy Australia strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Sundance Energy Australia 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Sundance Energy Australia 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Sundance Energy Australia needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Oil & Gas Operations industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Sundance Energy Australia can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Sundance Energy Australia is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Sundance Energy Australia, in the dynamic environment of Oil & Gas Operations industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sundance Energy Australia has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Sundance Energy Australia is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, but Sundance Energy Australia needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Sundance Energy Australia to focus more on services in the Oil & Gas Operations industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Sundance Energy Australia 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 Operations industry over the last five years. Sundance Energy Australia 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Sundance Energy Australia products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Sundance Energy Australia needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Sundance Energy Australia is just above the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
High dependence on Sundance Energy Australia ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Sundance Energy Australia still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Oil & Gas Operations industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Sundance Energy Australia has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Sundance Energy Australia supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Sundance Energy Australia is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Sundance Energy Australia vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Sundance Energy Australia Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Sundance Energy Australia are -
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. Sundance Energy Australia can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Sundance Energy Australia 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 Operations industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sundance Energy Australia 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 Sundance Energy Australia 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 Sundance Energy Australia to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sundance Energy Australia has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Oil & Gas Operations sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Sundance Energy Australia to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sundance Energy Australia to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sundance Energy Australia 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 Sundance Energy Australia has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Oil & Gas Operations industry. This can help Sundance Energy Australia to build a more holistic ecosystem for Sundance Energy Australia products in the Oil & Gas Operations industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Sundance Energy Australia 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Sundance Energy Australia 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Sundance Energy Australia can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Oil & Gas Operations industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Sundance Energy Australia 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. Sundance Energy Australia 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Oil & Gas Operations industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Sundance Energy Australia in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. Now Sundance Energy Australia can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sundance Energy Australia can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sundance Energy Australia operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Oil & Gas Operations sector.
Threats Sundance Energy Australia External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Sundance Energy Australia are -
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sundance Energy Australia 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 Operations industry and other sectors.
Environmental challenges
– Sundance Energy Australia 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. Sundance Energy Australia can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Oil & Gas Operations industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Sundance Energy Australia 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 Operations industry regulations.
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 Sundance Energy Australia.
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. Sundance Energy Australia 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Oil & Gas Operations industry are lowering. It can presents Sundance Energy Australia with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Oil & Gas Operations sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sundance Energy Australia has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sundance Energy Australia needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
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 Sundance Energy Australia in the Oil & Gas Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Sundance Energy Australia 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 Sundance Energy Australia prominent markets.
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. Sundance Energy Australia needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Oil & Gas Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sundance Energy Australia in Oil & Gas Operations industry. The Oil & Gas Operations 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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Sundance Energy Australia 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sundance Energy Australia Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Sundance Energy Australia 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 Sundance Energy Australia 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 Sundance Energy Australia 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 Sundance Energy Australia 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 Sundance Energy Australia needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
