SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Eagle Mining (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Eagle Mining is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Eagle Mining can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Eagle Mining, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Eagle Mining 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 Eagle Mining can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Eagle Mining
2. Improving business portfolio management of Eagle Mining
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Misc. Fabricated Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Eagle Mining
Strengths of Eagle Mining | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Eagle Mining are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Eagle Mining in Misc. Fabricated Products industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Eagle Mining in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Eagle Mining has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Eagle Mining to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Eagle Mining comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Analytics focus
– Eagle Mining 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry. The technology infrastructure of China 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Eagle Mining 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.
High brand equity
– Eagle Mining has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Eagle Mining to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Eagle Mining has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Eagle Mining staying ahead in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– Eagle Mining is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Eagle Mining is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This has provided Eagle Mining 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.
Learning organization
- Eagle Mining 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 Eagle Mining is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Eagle Mining emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Eagle Mining digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Eagle Mining 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.
Training and development
– Eagle Mining has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Weaknesses of Eagle Mining | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Eagle Mining are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Eagle Mining needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Eagle Mining, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Fabricated Products industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Eagle Mining has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Eagle Mining is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Eagle Mining to provide better information regarding Misc. Fabricated Products products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
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 Eagle Mining supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Eagle Mining is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Eagle Mining vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Eagle Mining needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Eagle Mining can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Eagle Mining is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Eagle Mining is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in last five years.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Eagle Mining 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, Eagle Mining 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Eagle Mining strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Eagle Mining 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Eagle Mining is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, but Eagle Mining needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Eagle Mining to focus more on services in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Eagle Mining has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Eagle Mining should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Eagle Mining Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Eagle Mining are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Eagle Mining 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 Eagle Mining to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Eagle Mining is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Eagle Mining can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Fabricated Products industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Eagle Mining to increase its market reach. Eagle Mining will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Eagle Mining can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Eagle Mining in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Eagle Mining in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. Now Eagle Mining can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Eagle Mining 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Eagle Mining can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Eagle Mining operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Eagle Mining 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Eagle Mining 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. Eagle Mining 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Eagle Mining can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Fabricated Products sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Eagle Mining 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Eagle Mining has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Fabricated Products sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Eagle Mining to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Eagle Mining to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Eagle Mining External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Eagle Mining are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Eagle Mining 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, Eagle Mining may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Eagle Mining 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. Eagle Mining can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
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 Eagle Mining in the Misc. Fabricated Products sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Eagle Mining 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry and other sectors.
Increasing wage structure of Eagle Mining
– 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 Eagle Mining.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Eagle Mining is facing in Misc. Fabricated Products sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Eagle Mining needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Fabricated Products 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 Eagle Mining.
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 Eagle Mining business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Eagle Mining 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Eagle Mining has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Eagle Mining needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Eagle Mining Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Eagle Mining 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 Eagle Mining 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 Eagle Mining 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 Eagle Mining 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 Eagle Mining needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
