Lopsking Alum A (2333) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Metal Mining
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Lopsking Alum A (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Lopsking Alum A is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Lopsking Alum A can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Lopsking Alum A, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Lopsking Alum A 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 Lopsking Alum A can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Lopsking Alum A
2. Improving business portfolio management of Lopsking Alum A
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Metal Mining sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Lopsking Alum A
Strengths of Lopsking Alum A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Lopsking Alum A are -
Strong track record of project management in the Metal Mining industry
– Lopsking Alum A is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- Lopsking Alum A 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 Lopsking Alum A is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Lopsking Alum A emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Lopsking Alum A 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 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.
Organizational Resilience of Lopsking Alum A
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Lopsking Alum A does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Lopsking Alum A has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Lopsking Alum A 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.
Ability to lead change in Metal Mining
– Lopsking Alum A is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Metal Mining industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Lopsking Alum A in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Lopsking Alum A in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Lopsking Alum A has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Lopsking Alum A to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Metal Mining industry
– Lopsking Alum A has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Lopsking Alum A to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Metal Mining industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Lopsking Alum A to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Metal Mining industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Lopsking Alum A digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Lopsking Alum A 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Lopsking Alum A 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.
Training and development
– Lopsking Alum A 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Lopsking Alum A is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry in China. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in China. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses of Lopsking Alum A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Lopsking Alum A are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Lopsking Alum A, in the dynamic environment of Metal Mining industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Lopsking Alum A has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Lopsking Alum A 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Lopsking Alum A has high operating costs in the Metal Mining industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Lopsking Alum A lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Lopsking Alum A 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.
Skills based hiring in Metal Mining industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Lopsking Alum A 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Lopsking Alum A products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Lopsking Alum A needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Lopsking Alum A is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Lopsking Alum A 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 China, Lopsking Alum A 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Lopsking Alum A has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Metal Mining industry over the last five years. Lopsking Alum A 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.
High dependence on Lopsking Alum A ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Lopsking Alum A still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Metal Mining industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Lopsking Alum A has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Lopsking Alum A 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.
Lopsking Alum A Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Lopsking Alum A are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Lopsking Alum A has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Metal Mining industry. This can help Lopsking Alum A to build a more holistic ecosystem for Lopsking Alum A products in the Metal Mining industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Lopsking Alum A is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Lopsking Alum A 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Lopsking Alum A 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Lopsking Alum A to increase its market reach. Lopsking Alum A 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
– Lopsking Alum A 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Lopsking Alum A 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Lopsking Alum A 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Lopsking Alum A 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 Lopsking Alum A to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– Lopsking Alum A 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Lopsking Alum A can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Lopsking Alum A operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Metal Mining sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Lopsking Alum A 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.
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 Lopsking Alum A in the Metal Mining industry. Now Lopsking Alum A can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Lopsking Alum A 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.
Threats Lopsking Alum A External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Lopsking Alum A are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Metal Mining industry are lowering. It can presents Lopsking Alum A with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Metal Mining sector.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Lopsking Alum A 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.
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.
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. Lopsking Alum A 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.
Environmental challenges
– Lopsking Alum A 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. Lopsking Alum A can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Metal Mining 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 Lopsking Alum A in the Metal Mining sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Lopsking Alum A 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 Lopsking Alum A prominent markets.
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. Lopsking Alum A can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Lopsking Alum A.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Lopsking Alum A is facing in Metal Mining sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Lopsking Alum A 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Lopsking Alum A 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Lopsking Alum A Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Lopsking Alum A 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 Lopsking Alum A 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 Lopsking Alum A 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 Lopsking Alum A 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 Lopsking Alum A needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
