SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Poseidon Nickel (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Poseidon Nickel is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Poseidon Nickel can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Poseidon Nickel, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Poseidon Nickel 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 Poseidon Nickel can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Poseidon Nickel
2. Improving business portfolio management of Poseidon Nickel
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 Poseidon Nickel
Strengths of Poseidon Nickel | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Poseidon Nickel are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Metal Mining industry
– Poseidon Nickel has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Poseidon Nickel to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Metal Mining industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Poseidon Nickel to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Poseidon Nickel is one of the most innovative firm in Metal Mining sector.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Poseidon Nickel 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Poseidon Nickel in Metal Mining industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Poseidon Nickel 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 Metal Mining 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Metal Mining industry
– Poseidon Nickel 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 Poseidon Nickel 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.
Ability to lead change in Metal Mining
– Poseidon Nickel is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Metal Mining industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Poseidon Nickel in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Poseidon Nickel is present in almost all the verticals within the Metal Mining industry. This has provided Poseidon Nickel 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.
Training and development
– Poseidon Nickel 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Poseidon Nickel has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Poseidon Nickel staying ahead in the Metal Mining industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Poseidon Nickel 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 Poseidon Nickel is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Poseidon Nickel emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Poseidon Nickel | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Poseidon Nickel are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Poseidon Nickel 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Poseidon Nickel 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Poseidon Nickel 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.
Skills based hiring in Metal Mining industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Poseidon Nickel 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Poseidon Nickel 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Poseidon Nickel is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Metal Mining industry in last five years.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Poseidon Nickel is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Poseidon Nickel to provide better information regarding Metal Mining products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Metal Mining industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Poseidon Nickel 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 Metal Mining industry.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Poseidon Nickel 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 Poseidon Nickel can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Poseidon Nickel is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Poseidon Nickel 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. Poseidon Nickel should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Poseidon Nickel, 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.
Poseidon Nickel Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Poseidon Nickel are -
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. Poseidon Nickel 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. Poseidon Nickel 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Poseidon Nickel can develop new processes and procedures in Metal Mining industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Metal Mining industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Poseidon Nickel can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Poseidon Nickel 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 Poseidon Nickel to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Poseidon Nickel 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Poseidon Nickel 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 Poseidon Nickel to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Poseidon Nickel to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Poseidon Nickel is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Poseidon Nickel can utilize new technology in the field of Metal Mining industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Poseidon Nickel has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Metal Mining industry. This can help Poseidon Nickel to build a more holistic ecosystem for Poseidon Nickel 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 Poseidon Nickel 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Poseidon Nickel 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Poseidon Nickel 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 Metal Mining industry.
Buying journey improvements
– Poseidon Nickel can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Metal Mining 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.
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 Poseidon Nickel in the Metal Mining industry. Now Poseidon Nickel can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Poseidon Nickel External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Poseidon Nickel are -
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. Poseidon Nickel can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Poseidon Nickel business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Poseidon Nickel 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Poseidon Nickel 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.
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. Poseidon Nickel needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Metal Mining industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Poseidon Nickel may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Metal Mining sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Poseidon Nickel in Metal Mining industry. The Metal Mining 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Metal Mining industry are lowering. It can presents Poseidon Nickel with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Metal Mining sector.
Environmental challenges
– Poseidon Nickel 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. Poseidon Nickel can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Metal Mining industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Poseidon Nickel 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.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Poseidon Nickel has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Metal Mining industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Poseidon Nickel 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Poseidon Nickel Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Poseidon Nickel 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 Poseidon Nickel 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 Poseidon Nickel 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 Poseidon Nickel 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 Poseidon Nickel needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
