Anton Oilfield Services (3337) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Oil Well Services & Equipment
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Anton Oilfield Services (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Anton Oilfield Services is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing energy prices, increasing commodity prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Anton Oilfield Services
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Anton Oilfield Services can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Anton Oilfield Services, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Anton Oilfield Services 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 Anton Oilfield Services can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Anton Oilfield Services
2. Improving business portfolio management of Anton Oilfield Services
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Oil Well Services & Equipment sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Anton Oilfield Services
Strengths of Anton Oilfield Services | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Anton Oilfield Services are -
Training and development
– Anton Oilfield Services 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Anton Oilfield Services has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Anton Oilfield Services 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.
Digital Transformation in Oil Well Services & Equipment industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Anton Oilfield Services digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Anton Oilfield Services 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.
Learning organization
- Anton Oilfield Services 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 Anton Oilfield Services is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Anton Oilfield Services emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Anton Oilfield Services are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Anton Oilfield Services 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 Oil Well Services & Equipment industry. The technology infrastructure of Hong Kong 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.
Organizational Resilience of Anton Oilfield Services
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Anton Oilfield Services does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Anton Oilfield Services in Oil Well Services & Equipment industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Anton Oilfield Services in the Energy sector have low bargaining power. Anton Oilfield Services has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Anton Oilfield Services to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Anton Oilfield Services is one of the most innovative firm in Oil Well Services & Equipment sector.
Ability to lead change in Oil Well Services & Equipment
– Anton Oilfield Services is one of the leading players in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Anton Oilfield Services in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Anton Oilfield Services has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Oil Well Services & Equipment industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Anton Oilfield Services have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Anton Oilfield Services | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Anton Oilfield Services are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Anton Oilfield Services has high operating costs in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Anton Oilfield Services lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Anton Oilfield Services 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 Well Services & Equipment industry over the last five years. Anton Oilfield Services 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Anton Oilfield Services, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Oil Well Services & Equipment 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Anton Oilfield Services is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Anton Oilfield Services to provide better information regarding Oil Well Services & Equipment products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Anton Oilfield Services is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry, but Anton Oilfield Services needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Anton Oilfield Services to focus more on services in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Lack of clear differentiation of Anton Oilfield Services products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Anton Oilfield Services needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ less understanding of Anton Oilfield Services strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Anton Oilfield Services 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Anton Oilfield Services is just above the Oil Well Services & Equipment 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Anton Oilfield Services needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring in Oil Well Services & Equipment industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Anton Oilfield Services 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Anton Oilfield Services needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Anton Oilfield Services can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Anton Oilfield Services is planning to shift buying processes online.
Anton Oilfield Services Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Anton Oilfield Services are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Anton Oilfield Services 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Anton Oilfield Services 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 Well Services & Equipment industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Anton Oilfield Services 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. Anton Oilfield Services 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Anton Oilfield Services can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Anton Oilfield Services has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Oil Well Services & Equipment industry. This can help Anton Oilfield Services to build a more holistic ecosystem for Anton Oilfield Services products in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Anton Oilfield Services 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, Anton Oilfield Services 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 Anton Oilfield Services to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Manufacturing automation
– Anton Oilfield Services can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Oil Well Services & Equipment 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.
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. Anton Oilfield Services can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Oil Well Services & Equipment industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Anton Oilfield Services in the Oil Well Services & Equipment industry. Now Anton Oilfield Services can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Anton Oilfield Services 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 Well Services & Equipment industry.
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 Anton Oilfield Services 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Anton Oilfield Services 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 Anton Oilfield Services to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Anton Oilfield Services External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Anton Oilfield Services are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Anton Oilfield Services 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 Well Services & Equipment industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Anton Oilfield Services 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 Oil Well Services & Equipment industry and other sectors.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Anton Oilfield Services may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Oil Well Services & Equipment sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Oil Well Services & Equipment industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Anton Oilfield Services can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Anton Oilfield Services
– 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 Anton Oilfield Services.
Regulatory challenges
– Anton Oilfield Services 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 Well Services & Equipment industry regulations.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Oil Well Services & Equipment industry are lowering. It can presents Anton Oilfield Services with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Oil Well Services & Equipment sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Anton Oilfield Services 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 Anton Oilfield Services prominent markets.
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. Anton Oilfield Services 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.
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 Anton Oilfield Services.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Anton Oilfield Services 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Anton Oilfield Services is facing in Oil Well Services & Equipment sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Anton Oilfield Services Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Anton Oilfield Services 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 Anton Oilfield Services 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 Anton Oilfield Services 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 Anton Oilfield Services 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 Anton Oilfield Services needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.