SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Laramide Resources Ltd (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Laramide Resources Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Laramide Resources Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Laramide Resources Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Laramide Resources Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Laramide Resources Ltd 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 Laramide Resources Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Laramide Resources Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Laramide Resources Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Laramide Resources Ltd
Strengths of Laramide Resources Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Laramide Resources Ltd are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Laramide Resources Ltd in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Laramide Resources Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Laramide Resources Ltd in the sector have low bargaining power. Laramide Resources Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Laramide Resources Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Laramide Resources Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Laramide Resources Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Laramide Resources Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Laramide Resources Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Laramide Resources Ltd 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.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Laramide Resources Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Laramide Resources Ltd 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Laramide Resources Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Laramide Resources Ltd 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.
High brand equity
– Laramide Resources Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Laramide Resources Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Laramide Resources Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Laramide Resources Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Laramide Resources Ltd is one of the leading players in the 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.
Ability to lead change in
– Laramide Resources Ltd is one of the leading players in the industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Laramide Resources Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Laramide Resources Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Weaknesses of Laramide Resources Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Laramide Resources Ltd are -
Employees’ less understanding of Laramide Resources Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Laramide Resources Ltd 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Laramide Resources Ltd, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Laramide Resources Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Laramide Resources Ltd has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Laramide Resources Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Laramide Resources Ltd has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Laramide Resources Ltd 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 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 Laramide Resources Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Laramide Resources Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Laramide Resources Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Laramide Resources Ltd has high operating costs in the industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Laramide Resources Ltd lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Laramide Resources Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact 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 Laramide Resources Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Laramide Resources Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Laramide Resources Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Laramide Resources Ltd is just above the 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.
High dependence on Laramide Resources Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Laramide Resources Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Laramide Resources Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Laramide Resources Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Laramide Resources Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Laramide Resources Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Laramide Resources Ltd are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Laramide Resources Ltd 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
– Laramide Resources Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Laramide Resources Ltd 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 Laramide Resources Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Laramide Resources Ltd 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, Laramide Resources Ltd 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 Laramide Resources Ltd to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Laramide Resources Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Laramide Resources Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Laramide Resources Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Laramide Resources Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Laramide Resources Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Laramide Resources Ltd 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Laramide Resources Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Laramide Resources Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Laramide Resources Ltd products in the 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, Laramide Resources Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Laramide Resources Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Laramide Resources Ltd 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. Laramide Resources Ltd 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Laramide Resources Ltd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Laramide Resources Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Laramide Resources Ltd are -
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Laramide Resources Ltd 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Laramide Resources Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Laramide Resources Ltd 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 Laramide Resources Ltd prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Laramide Resources Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Laramide Resources Ltd in industry. The 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Laramide Resources Ltd is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Laramide Resources Ltd 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. Laramide Resources Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Laramide Resources Ltd 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 industry regulations.
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 Laramide Resources Ltd in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Laramide Resources Ltd 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 industry.
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 Laramide Resources Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Laramide Resources Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Laramide Resources Ltd 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 Laramide Resources Ltd 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 Laramide Resources Ltd 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 Laramide Resources Ltd 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 Laramide Resources Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.