CUE Energy Resources (CUE) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Oil & Gas - Integrated
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for CUE Energy Resources (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , CUE Energy Resources is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of CUE Energy Resources
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that CUE Energy Resources can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the CUE Energy Resources, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which CUE Energy Resources 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 CUE Energy Resources can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of CUE Energy Resources
2. Improving business portfolio management of CUE Energy Resources
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Oil & Gas - Integrated sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of CUE Energy Resources
Strengths of CUE Energy Resources | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of CUE Energy Resources are -
Diverse revenue streams
– CUE Energy Resources is present in almost all the verticals within the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. This has provided CUE Energy Resources 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.
Training and development
– CUE Energy Resources has one of the best training and development program in Energy 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.
Organizational Resilience of CUE Energy Resources
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing CUE Energy Resources does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– CUE Energy Resources has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – CUE Energy Resources staying ahead in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For CUE Energy Resources digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. CUE Energy Resources has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that CUE Energy Resources 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– CUE Energy Resources 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 CUE Energy Resources in the Energy sector have low bargaining power. CUE Energy Resources has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps CUE Energy Resources to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– CUE Energy Resources has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled CUE Energy Resources to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. The sustainable margins have also helped CUE Energy Resources to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of CUE Energy Resources comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Learning organization
- CUE Energy Resources 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 CUE Energy Resources is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at CUE Energy Resources emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of CUE Energy Resources in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of CUE Energy Resources | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of CUE Energy Resources are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, CUE Energy Resources 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 Oil & Gas - Integrated industry.
Employees’ less understanding of CUE Energy Resources strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of CUE Energy Resources 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 CUE Energy Resources is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry in last five years.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, CUE Energy Resources has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry over the last five years. CUE Energy Resources 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 CUE Energy Resources supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, CUE Energy Resources is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left CUE Energy Resources vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that CUE Energy Resources needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at CUE Energy Resources can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as CUE Energy Resources is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at CUE Energy Resources 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of CUE Energy Resources is just above the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Need for greater diversity
– CUE Energy Resources 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of CUE Energy Resources products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, CUE Energy Resources needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High dependence on CUE Energy Resources ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of CUE Energy Resources still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though CUE Energy Resources has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
CUE Energy Resources Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of CUE Energy Resources are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of CUE Energy Resources has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. This can help CUE Energy Resources to build a more holistic ecosystem for CUE Energy Resources products in the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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 CUE Energy Resources in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Oil & Gas - Integrated industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. CUE Energy Resources can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects CUE Energy Resources can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– CUE Energy Resources 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, CUE Energy Resources 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 CUE Energy Resources to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. CUE Energy Resources can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at CUE Energy Resources 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 Oil & Gas - Integrated industry.
Leveraging digital technologies
– CUE Energy Resources 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for CUE Energy Resources 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 CUE Energy Resources to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– CUE Energy Resources can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. CUE Energy Resources 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. CUE Energy Resources 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.
Buying journey improvements
– CUE Energy Resources can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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 CUE Energy Resources External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of CUE Energy Resources are -
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. CUE Energy Resources needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– CUE Energy Resources 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 Oil & Gas - Integrated industry regulations.
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 CUE Energy Resources.
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 CUE Energy Resources business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Oil & Gas - Integrated industry are lowering. It can presents CUE Energy Resources with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Oil & Gas - Integrated sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that CUE Energy Resources is facing in Oil & Gas - Integrated sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, CUE Energy Resources 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 CUE Energy Resources prominent markets.
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 CUE Energy Resources in the Oil & Gas - Integrated sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– CUE Energy Resources 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 Oil & Gas - Integrated industry.
Environmental challenges
– CUE Energy Resources 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. CUE Energy Resources can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– CUE Energy Resources has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Oil & Gas - Integrated industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, CUE Energy Resources needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Oil & Gas - Integrated 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.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– CUE Energy Resources 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of CUE Energy Resources Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at CUE Energy Resources 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 CUE Energy Resources 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 CUE Energy Resources 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 CUE Energy Resources 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 CUE Energy Resources needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
