SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Millennium Minerals (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Millennium Minerals is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Millennium Minerals
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Millennium Minerals can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Millennium Minerals, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Millennium Minerals 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 Millennium Minerals can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Millennium Minerals
2. Improving business portfolio management of Millennium Minerals
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Gold & Silver sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Millennium Minerals
Strengths of Millennium Minerals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Millennium Minerals are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Millennium Minerals has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Millennium Minerals 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Millennium Minerals in Gold & Silver industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Millennium Minerals in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Millennium Minerals has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Millennium Minerals to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– Millennium Minerals 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 Gold & Silver 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Millennium Minerals has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Millennium Minerals staying ahead in the Gold & Silver industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Gold & Silver industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Millennium Minerals digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Millennium Minerals 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 Gold & Silver industry
– Millennium Minerals has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Millennium Minerals to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Gold & Silver industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Millennium Minerals to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Millennium Minerals
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Millennium Minerals does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Millennium Minerals 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Millennium Minerals is present in almost all the verticals within the Gold & Silver industry. This has provided Millennium Minerals 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Gold & Silver industry
– Millennium Minerals is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Millennium Minerals has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Gold & Silver industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Millennium Minerals have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Millennium Minerals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Millennium Minerals are -
Employees’ less understanding of Millennium Minerals strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Millennium Minerals 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Millennium Minerals products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Millennium Minerals needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Millennium Minerals 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 Gold & Silver industry using digital technology.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Millennium Minerals needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Millennium Minerals, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Gold & Silver 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Gold & Silver industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Millennium Minerals 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 Gold & Silver industry.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Millennium Minerals has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Gold & Silver industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High dependence on Millennium Minerals ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Millennium Minerals still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Gold & Silver industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Millennium Minerals has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring in Gold & Silver industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Millennium Minerals 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Millennium Minerals is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Gold & Silver industry, but Millennium Minerals needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Millennium Minerals to focus more on services in the Gold & Silver industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Millennium Minerals is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Millennium Minerals to provide better information regarding Gold & Silver products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Millennium Minerals Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Millennium Minerals are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Millennium Minerals can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Millennium Minerals 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
– Millennium Minerals has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Gold & Silver sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Millennium Minerals to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Millennium Minerals to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Millennium Minerals has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Gold & Silver industry. This can help Millennium Minerals to build a more holistic ecosystem for Millennium Minerals products in the Gold & Silver industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Millennium Minerals can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Gold & Silver 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 Gold & Silver industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Millennium Minerals 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. Millennium Minerals 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.
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. Millennium Minerals can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Millennium Minerals can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Gold & Silver industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Millennium Minerals in the Gold & Silver industry. Now Millennium Minerals can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Millennium Minerals 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 Millennium Minerals 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 Millennium Minerals to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Gold & Silver industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Millennium Minerals can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Millennium Minerals 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 Millennium Minerals to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Millennium Minerals External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Millennium Minerals are -
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.
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 Millennium Minerals business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Millennium Minerals 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 Gold & Silver industry regulations.
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. Millennium Minerals needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Gold & Silver industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Millennium Minerals 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.
Increasing wage structure of Millennium Minerals
– 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 Millennium Minerals.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Millennium Minerals has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Gold & Silver industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Millennium Minerals needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Gold & Silver 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Gold & Silver industry are lowering. It can presents Millennium Minerals with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Gold & Silver sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Millennium Minerals may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Gold & Silver sector.
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 Millennium Minerals.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Millennium Minerals 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Millennium Minerals 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 Gold & Silver industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Millennium Minerals Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Millennium Minerals 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 Millennium Minerals 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 Millennium Minerals 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 Millennium Minerals 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 Millennium Minerals needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
