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 – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions,
there is backlash against globalization, wage bills are increasing, 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 -
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Sundance Energy Australia has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Oil & Gas Operations industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Sundance Energy Australia have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Sundance Energy Australia has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sundance Energy Australia to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
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.
Analytics focus
– Sundance Energy Australia 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 Oil & Gas Operations industry. The technology infrastructure of Australia 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Sundance Energy Australia in the Energy sector have low bargaining power. Sundance Energy Australia has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Sundance Energy Australia to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Sundance Energy Australia 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 Sundance Energy Australia is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Sundance Energy Australia emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Sundance Energy Australia is one of the most innovative firm in Oil & Gas Operations sector.
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 -
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.
Skills based hiring in Oil & Gas Operations industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sundance Energy Australia 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Oil & Gas Operations industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Sundance Energy Australia is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Oil & Gas Operations industry.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Sundance Energy Australia is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations 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 Operations industry in last five years.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Need for greater diversity
– Sundance Energy Australia 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.
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.
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.
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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sundance Energy Australia 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 Sundance Energy Australia to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sundance Energy Australia is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sundance Energy Australia can utilize new technology in the field of Oil & Gas Operations industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Oil & Gas Operations industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Sundance Energy Australia can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sundance Energy Australia 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 Operations industry.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Sundance Energy Australia 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Sundance Energy Australia 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 Operations sector.
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 Sundance Energy Australia business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Oil & Gas Operations industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Sundance Energy Australia can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 wage structure of Sundance Energy Australia
– 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 Sundance Energy Australia.
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.
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.
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.