SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Prairie Downs Metals (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Prairie Downs Metals is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Prairie Downs Metals
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Prairie Downs Metals can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Prairie Downs Metals, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Prairie Downs Metals 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 Prairie Downs Metals can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Prairie Downs Metals
2. Improving business portfolio management of Prairie Downs Metals
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Coal sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Prairie Downs Metals
Strengths of Prairie Downs Metals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Prairie Downs Metals are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Prairie Downs Metals is one of the leading players in the Coal 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.
Analytics focus
– Prairie Downs Metals 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 Coal 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Prairie Downs Metals is present in almost all the verticals within the Coal industry. This has provided Prairie Downs Metals 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Prairie Downs Metals in the Energy sector have low bargaining power. Prairie Downs Metals has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Prairie Downs Metals to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Prairie Downs Metals has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Coal industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Prairie Downs Metals have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Prairie Downs Metals has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Prairie Downs Metals to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Prairie Downs Metals has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Prairie Downs Metals 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.
Organizational Resilience of Prairie Downs Metals
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Prairie Downs Metals does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Coal industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Prairie Downs Metals digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Prairie Downs Metals 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Prairie Downs Metals in Coal industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Prairie Downs Metals has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Prairie Downs Metals staying ahead in the Coal industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Coal
– Prairie Downs Metals is one of the leading players in the Coal industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Coal industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Prairie Downs Metals in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Prairie Downs Metals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Prairie Downs Metals are -
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Prairie Downs Metals supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Prairie Downs Metals is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Prairie Downs Metals vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ less understanding of Prairie Downs Metals strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Prairie Downs Metals 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Prairie Downs Metals has high operating costs in the Coal industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Prairie Downs Metals lucrative customers.
Skills based hiring in Coal industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Prairie Downs Metals 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Prairie Downs Metals has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Coal industry over the last five years. Prairie Downs Metals 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Prairie Downs Metals 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Prairie Downs Metals 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.
High dependence on Prairie Downs Metals ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Prairie Downs Metals still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Coal industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Prairie Downs Metals has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Prairie Downs Metals is one of the leading players in the Coal industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Coal industry in last five years.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Prairie Downs Metals needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Coal industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Prairie Downs Metals can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Prairie Downs Metals is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Coal industry, Prairie Downs Metals needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Prairie Downs Metals Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Prairie Downs Metals are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Prairie Downs Metals is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Prairie Downs Metals can utilize new technology in the field of Coal industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Prairie Downs Metals to increase its market reach. Prairie Downs Metals 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.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Prairie Downs Metals to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Prairie Downs Metals 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Prairie Downs Metals can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Prairie Downs Metals operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Coal sector.
Manufacturing automation
– Prairie Downs Metals can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Coal sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Prairie Downs Metals has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Coal sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Prairie Downs Metals to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Prairie Downs Metals to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Prairie Downs Metals 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 Prairie Downs Metals to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Prairie Downs Metals 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Prairie Downs Metals has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Coal industry. This can help Prairie Downs Metals to build a more holistic ecosystem for Prairie Downs Metals products in the Coal industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Prairie Downs Metals 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Prairie Downs Metals can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Coal 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 Coal industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Prairie Downs Metals 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. Prairie Downs Metals 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.
Threats Prairie Downs Metals External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Prairie Downs Metals are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Prairie Downs Metals 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 Coal industry and other sectors.
Increasing wage structure of Prairie Downs Metals
– 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 Prairie Downs Metals.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Prairie Downs Metals is facing in Coal sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Prairie Downs Metals may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Coal sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Prairie Downs Metals has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Coal industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Prairie Downs Metals needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Coal 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Prairie Downs Metals 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 Coal industry regulations.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Coal industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Prairie Downs Metals can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Prairie Downs Metals in Coal industry. The Coal 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.
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. Prairie Downs Metals 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.
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 Prairie Downs Metals business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Prairie Downs Metals 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. Prairie Downs Metals can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Coal industry.
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 Prairie Downs Metals Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Prairie Downs Metals 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 Prairie Downs Metals 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 Prairie Downs Metals 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 Prairie Downs Metals 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 Prairie Downs Metals needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.