Shandong Geo Mineral A (409) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Metal Mining
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Shandong Geo Mineral A (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Shandong Geo Mineral A is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
geopolitical disruptions, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Shandong Geo Mineral A
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Shandong Geo Mineral A can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Shandong Geo Mineral A, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Shandong Geo Mineral 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 Shandong Geo Mineral A can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Shandong Geo Mineral A
2. Improving business portfolio management of Shandong Geo Mineral 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 Shandong Geo Mineral A
Strengths of Shandong Geo Mineral A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Shandong Geo Mineral A are -
Digital Transformation in Metal Mining industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Shandong Geo Mineral A digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Shandong Geo Mineral 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Shandong Geo Mineral A 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Shandong Geo Mineral A has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Metal Mining industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Shandong Geo Mineral A have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Shandong Geo Mineral 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Shandong Geo Mineral A is one of the most innovative firm in Metal Mining sector.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Shandong Geo Mineral A has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Shandong Geo Mineral 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.
Training and development
– Shandong Geo Mineral 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.
Learning organization
- Shandong Geo Mineral 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 Shandong Geo Mineral A is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Shandong Geo Mineral A emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Shandong Geo Mineral A has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Shandong Geo Mineral A to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Shandong Geo Mineral A in Metal Mining industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Shandong Geo Mineral 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Shandong Geo Mineral A in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Shandong Geo Mineral A has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Shandong Geo Mineral A to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Shandong Geo Mineral A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Shandong Geo Mineral A are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Shandong Geo Mineral 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. Shandong Geo Mineral 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 Shandong Geo Mineral A ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Shandong Geo Mineral 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 Shandong Geo Mineral A has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Metal Mining industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Shandong Geo Mineral 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Shandong Geo Mineral 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Shandong Geo Mineral A, 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Shandong Geo Mineral A strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Shandong Geo Mineral A 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 strategic competitive environment developments
– As Shandong Geo Mineral A 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Shandong Geo Mineral A 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 Shandong Geo Mineral A can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Shandong Geo Mineral A is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Shandong Geo Mineral A, in the dynamic environment of Metal Mining industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Shandong Geo Mineral A has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Shandong Geo Mineral 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Shandong Geo Mineral A is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Shandong Geo Mineral 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.
Shandong Geo Mineral A Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Shandong Geo Mineral A are -
Loyalty marketing
– Shandong Geo Mineral 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Shandong Geo Mineral 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Shandong Geo Mineral 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 Shandong Geo Mineral 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.
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 Shandong Geo Mineral A in the Metal Mining industry. Now Shandong Geo Mineral A can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Shandong Geo Mineral 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Shandong Geo Mineral 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Shandong Geo Mineral A has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Metal Mining industry. This can help Shandong Geo Mineral A to build a more holistic ecosystem for Shandong Geo Mineral A products in the Metal Mining industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Shandong Geo Mineral A to increase its market reach. Shandong Geo Mineral 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Shandong Geo Mineral A 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 Shandong Geo Mineral A to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Shandong Geo Mineral 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Shandong Geo Mineral 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.
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. Shandong Geo Mineral A can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Shandong Geo Mineral 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.
Threats Shandong Geo Mineral A External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Shandong Geo Mineral A are -
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 Shandong Geo Mineral A.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Shandong Geo Mineral A 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.
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. Shandong Geo Mineral 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Shandong Geo Mineral A 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.
Increasing wage structure of Shandong Geo Mineral A
– 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 Shandong Geo Mineral A.
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. Shandong Geo Mineral A needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Metal Mining industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Shandong Geo Mineral 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 Shandong Geo Mineral A prominent markets.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Shandong Geo Mineral A 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.
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. Shandong Geo Mineral A can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Shandong Geo Mineral 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.
Environmental challenges
– Shandong Geo Mineral 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. Shandong Geo Mineral 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 Shandong Geo Mineral A in the Metal Mining sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Shandong Geo Mineral A Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Shandong Geo Mineral 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 Shandong Geo Mineral 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 Shandong Geo Mineral 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 Shandong Geo Mineral 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 Shandong Geo Mineral A needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
