Leigh Creek Energy (LCK) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Leigh Creek Energy (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Leigh Creek Energy is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Leigh Creek Energy
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Leigh Creek Energy can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Leigh Creek Energy, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Leigh Creek Energy 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 Leigh Creek Energy can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Leigh Creek Energy
2. Improving business portfolio management of Leigh Creek Energy
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Misc. Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Leigh Creek Energy
Strengths of Leigh Creek Energy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Leigh Creek Energy are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Leigh Creek Energy is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided Leigh Creek Energy 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.
Organizational Resilience of Leigh Creek Energy
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Leigh Creek Energy does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Leigh Creek Energy has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Leigh Creek Energy staying ahead in the Misc. Financial Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Leigh Creek Energy is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services 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.
Learning organization
- Leigh Creek Energy 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 Leigh Creek Energy is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Leigh Creek Energy emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Leigh Creek Energy has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Leigh Creek Energy to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Leigh Creek Energy has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Leigh Creek Energy 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Leigh Creek Energy is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Leigh Creek Energy has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Leigh Creek Energy to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Leigh Creek Energy to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Leigh Creek Energy digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Leigh Creek Energy 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Leigh Creek Energy in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Leigh Creek Energy has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Leigh Creek Energy to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Leigh Creek Energy has one of the best training and development program in Financial 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.
Weaknesses of Leigh Creek Energy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Leigh Creek Energy are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Financial Services industry, Leigh Creek Energy 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Leigh Creek Energy is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Leigh Creek Energy to provide better information regarding Misc. Financial Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Leigh Creek Energy needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Leigh Creek Energy is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry in last five years.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Leigh Creek Energy has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry over the last five years. Leigh Creek Energy 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 Leigh Creek Energy ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Leigh Creek Energy still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Leigh Creek Energy has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ less understanding of Leigh Creek Energy strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Leigh Creek Energy 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Leigh Creek Energy has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Financial Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Leigh Creek Energy 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 Leigh Creek Energy, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Financial Services 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Leigh Creek Energy needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Financial Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Leigh Creek Energy can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Leigh Creek Energy is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Leigh Creek Energy 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.
Leigh Creek Energy Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Leigh Creek Energy are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Leigh Creek Energy has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Leigh Creek Energy to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Leigh Creek Energy to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Financial Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Leigh Creek Energy 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. Leigh Creek Energy 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Leigh Creek Energy is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Leigh Creek Energy can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Financial Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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. Leigh Creek Energy can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Leigh Creek Energy 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Financial Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Leigh Creek Energy can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Buying journey improvements
– Leigh Creek Energy can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Financial Services 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Leigh Creek Energy has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help Leigh Creek Energy to build a more holistic ecosystem for Leigh Creek Energy products in the Misc. Financial Services 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 Leigh Creek Energy in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Financial Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Leigh Creek Energy to increase its market reach. Leigh Creek Energy 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 Leigh Creek Energy 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Leigh Creek Energy 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Leigh Creek Energy can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Financial Services 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.
Threats Leigh Creek Energy External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Leigh Creek Energy are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Leigh Creek Energy 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 Leigh Creek Energy prominent markets.
Regulatory challenges
– Leigh Creek Energy 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 Misc. Financial Services industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Leigh Creek Energy 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.
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 Leigh Creek Energy business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Financial Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Leigh Creek Energy can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Leigh Creek Energy 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Leigh Creek Energy in Misc. Financial Services industry. The Misc. Financial Services 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Leigh Creek Energy 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 Misc. Financial Services industry and other sectors.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Leigh Creek Energy may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Financial Services sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Leigh Creek Energy is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Leigh Creek Energy 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. Leigh Creek Energy can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
Increasing wage structure of Leigh Creek Energy
– 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 Leigh Creek Energy.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Leigh Creek Energy 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Leigh Creek Energy Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Leigh Creek Energy 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 Leigh Creek Energy 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 Leigh Creek Energy 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 Leigh Creek Energy 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 Leigh Creek Energy needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.