SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Argosy Minerals Ltd (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Argosy Minerals Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Argosy Minerals Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Argosy Minerals Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Argosy Minerals Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Argosy Minerals Ltd 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 Argosy Minerals Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Argosy Minerals Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Argosy Minerals Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Metal Mining sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Argosy Minerals Ltd
Strengths of Argosy Minerals Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Argosy Minerals Ltd are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Argosy Minerals Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Argosy Minerals Ltd 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Argosy Minerals Ltd 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.
High brand equity
– Argosy Minerals Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Argosy Minerals Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Argosy Minerals Ltd in Metal Mining industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Metal Mining industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Argosy Minerals Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Argosy Minerals Ltd 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 Argosy Minerals Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Argosy Minerals Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Argosy Minerals Ltd is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Argosy Minerals Ltd in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Argosy Minerals Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Argosy Minerals Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the Metal Mining industry
– Argosy Minerals Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Argosy Minerals Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Metal Mining 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
– Argosy Minerals Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Metal Mining industry. This has provided Argosy Minerals Ltd 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Argosy Minerals Ltd 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.
Weaknesses of Argosy Minerals Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Argosy Minerals Ltd are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Argosy Minerals Ltd is just above the Metal Mining 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Argosy Minerals Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Argosy Minerals Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring in Metal Mining industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Argosy Minerals Ltd 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Argosy Minerals Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Argosy Minerals Ltd 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Argosy Minerals Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Argosy Minerals Ltd to provide better information regarding Metal Mining products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Argosy Minerals Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Metal Mining industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Argosy Minerals Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Argosy Minerals Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Argosy Minerals Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Metal Mining 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Argosy Minerals Ltd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Metal Mining industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Argosy Minerals Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Metal Mining industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Argosy Minerals Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Argosy Minerals Ltd has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Metal Mining industry using digital technology.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Argosy Minerals Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Metal Mining industry, but Argosy Minerals Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Argosy Minerals Ltd to focus more on services in the Metal Mining industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Argosy Minerals Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Argosy Minerals Ltd are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Argosy Minerals Ltd 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.
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. Argosy Minerals Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Argosy Minerals Ltd to increase its market reach. Argosy Minerals Ltd 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Argosy Minerals Ltd 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Argosy Minerals Ltd 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 Argosy Minerals Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Metal Mining industry. This can help Argosy Minerals Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Argosy Minerals Ltd products in the Metal Mining industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Argosy Minerals Ltd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Metal Mining industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Metal Mining industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Argosy Minerals Ltd in the Metal Mining industry. Now Argosy Minerals Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Argosy Minerals Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Metal Mining sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Argosy Minerals Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Argosy Minerals Ltd 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 Metal Mining industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Argosy Minerals Ltd 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. Argosy Minerals Ltd 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Argosy Minerals Ltd 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Argosy Minerals Ltd 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 Argosy Minerals Ltd to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Argosy Minerals Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Argosy Minerals Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Metal Mining sector.
Threats Argosy Minerals Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Argosy Minerals Ltd are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Argosy Minerals Ltd 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 Metal Mining industry and other sectors.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Argosy Minerals Ltd 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 Metal Mining industry.
Environmental challenges
– Argosy Minerals Ltd 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. Argosy Minerals Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Metal Mining industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Argosy Minerals Ltd 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 Argosy Minerals Ltd prominent markets.
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 Argosy Minerals Ltd in the Metal Mining sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Metal Mining industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Argosy Minerals Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Argosy Minerals Ltd
– 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 Argosy Minerals Ltd.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Argosy Minerals Ltd 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Argosy Minerals Ltd is facing in Metal Mining sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Argosy Minerals Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Metal Mining industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Argosy Minerals Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Metal Mining 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.
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 Argosy Minerals Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Argosy Minerals Ltd 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 Metal Mining industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Argosy Minerals Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Argosy Minerals Ltd 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 Argosy Minerals Ltd 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 Argosy Minerals Ltd 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 Argosy Minerals Ltd 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 Argosy Minerals Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.