SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sunshine Oilsands (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sunshine Oilsands is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Sunshine Oilsands
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Sunshine Oilsands can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sunshine Oilsands, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sunshine Oilsands 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 Sunshine Oilsands can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sunshine Oilsands
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sunshine Oilsands
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Oil & Gas Operations sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Sunshine Oilsands
Strengths of Sunshine Oilsands | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sunshine Oilsands are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sunshine Oilsands 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
– Sunshine Oilsands 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 & Gas Operations 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.
Digital Transformation in Oil & Gas Operations industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Sunshine Oilsands digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Sunshine Oilsands 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Sunshine Oilsands has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Oil & Gas Operations industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Sunshine Oilsands have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Sunshine Oilsands has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sunshine Oilsands to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Sunshine Oilsands in Oil & Gas Operations industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Sunshine Oilsands is present in almost all the verticals within the Oil & Gas Operations industry. This has provided Sunshine Oilsands 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sunshine Oilsands has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sunshine Oilsands 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.
Learning organization
- Sunshine Oilsands 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 Sunshine Oilsands is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Sunshine Oilsands emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Oil & Gas Operations
– Sunshine Oilsands is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Sunshine Oilsands in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Oil & Gas Operations industry
– Sunshine Oilsands has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sunshine Oilsands to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sunshine Oilsands to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Sunshine Oilsands is one of the most innovative firm in Oil & Gas Operations sector.
Weaknesses of Sunshine Oilsands | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sunshine Oilsands are -
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Sunshine Oilsands supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Sunshine Oilsands is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Sunshine Oilsands vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Sunshine Oilsands has some of the most successful models in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Sunshine Oilsands should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Sunshine Oilsands products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Sunshine Oilsands needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, Sunshine Oilsands 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Sunshine Oilsands needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Oil & Gas Operations industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Sunshine Oilsands can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Sunshine Oilsands is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Sunshine Oilsands is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations 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 Operations industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Sunshine Oilsands, in the dynamic environment of Oil & Gas Operations industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sunshine Oilsands has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Sunshine Oilsands needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Sunshine Oilsands has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Sunshine Oilsands is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Sunshine Oilsands to provide better information regarding Oil & Gas Operations products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Sunshine Oilsands, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Sunshine Oilsands Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Sunshine Oilsands are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Sunshine Oilsands 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 Operations industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sunshine Oilsands has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Oil & Gas Operations sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Sunshine Oilsands to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sunshine Oilsands to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Oil & Gas Operations industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Sunshine Oilsands in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. Now Sunshine Oilsands can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Sunshine Oilsands can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Sunshine Oilsands to increase its market reach. Sunshine Oilsands 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sunshine Oilsands is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sunshine Oilsands can utilize new technology in the field of Oil & Gas Operations industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Sunshine Oilsands 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Oil & Gas Operations industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Sunshine Oilsands 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. Sunshine Oilsands 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Sunshine Oilsands can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sunshine Oilsands can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Sunshine Oilsands can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Oil & Gas Operations 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 Sunshine Oilsands has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Oil & Gas Operations industry. This can help Sunshine Oilsands to build a more holistic ecosystem for Sunshine Oilsands products in the Oil & Gas Operations industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Sunshine Oilsands can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Threats Sunshine Oilsands External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Sunshine Oilsands are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sunshine Oilsands 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 & Gas Operations industry and other sectors.
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 Sunshine Oilsands business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Sunshine Oilsands 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Oil & Gas Operations industry are lowering. It can presents Sunshine Oilsands with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Oil & Gas Operations sector.
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 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. Sunshine Oilsands needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Oil & Gas Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Sunshine Oilsands 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 Operations industry regulations.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sunshine Oilsands 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 Operations industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sunshine Oilsands has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sunshine Oilsands needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sunshine Oilsands in Oil & Gas Operations industry. The Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Sunshine Oilsands 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 & Gas Operations sector.
Increasing wage structure of Sunshine Oilsands
– 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 Sunshine Oilsands.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Sunshine Oilsands 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 Sunshine Oilsands prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sunshine Oilsands Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Sunshine Oilsands 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 Sunshine Oilsands 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 Sunshine Oilsands 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 Sunshine Oilsands 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 Sunshine Oilsands needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
