North Mining Shares (433) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for North Mining Shares (Hong Kong)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , North Mining Shares is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of North Mining Shares

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that North Mining Shares can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the North Mining Shares, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which North Mining Shares 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of North Mining Shares can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of North Mining Shares
2. Improving business portfolio management of North Mining Shares
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Metal Mining sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of North Mining Shares

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Strengths of North Mining Shares | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of North Mining Shares are -

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of North Mining Shares in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. North Mining Shares has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps North Mining Shares to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Training and development

– North Mining Shares has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– North Mining Shares is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry in Hong Kong. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Hong Kong. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Analytics focus

– North Mining Shares 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 Metal Mining 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.

Innovation driven organization

– North Mining Shares is one of the most innovative firm in Metal Mining sector.

Diverse revenue streams

– North Mining Shares is present in almost all the verticals within the Metal Mining industry. This has provided North Mining Shares 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.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of North Mining Shares comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Metal Mining 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Metal Mining industry

– North Mining Shares is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Digital Transformation in Metal Mining industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For North Mining Shares digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. North Mining Shares 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 brand equity

– North Mining Shares has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled North Mining Shares to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Organizational Resilience of North Mining Shares

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing North Mining Shares does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Metal Mining industry

– North Mining Shares has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled North Mining Shares to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Metal Mining industry. The sustainable margins have also helped North Mining Shares to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

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Weaknesses of North Mining Shares | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of North Mining Shares are -

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of North Mining Shares, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Metal Mining 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 strategic competitive environment developments

– As North Mining Shares is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Metal Mining industry in last five years.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, North Mining Shares has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Metal Mining industry over the last five years. North Mining Shares 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.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, North Mining Shares 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.

Employees’ less understanding of North Mining Shares strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of North Mining Shares 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, North Mining Shares needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

North Mining Shares has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Metal Mining industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Skills based hiring in Metal Mining industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at North Mining Shares 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.

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 North Mining Shares supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, North Mining Shares is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left North Mining Shares vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at North Mining Shares, in the dynamic environment of Metal Mining industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. North Mining Shares 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 North Mining Shares has some of the most successful models in the Metal Mining industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. North Mining Shares should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

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North Mining Shares Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of North Mining Shares are -

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 North Mining Shares 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 North Mining Shares 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 North Mining Shares to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– North Mining Shares has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Metal Mining sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled North Mining Shares to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help North Mining Shares to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Loyalty marketing

– North Mining Shares 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects North Mining Shares can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for North Mining Shares to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.

Buying journey improvements

– North Mining Shares can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Metal Mining 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.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Metal Mining industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. North Mining Shares 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. North Mining Shares 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.

Developing new processes and practices

– North Mining Shares can develop new processes and procedures in Metal Mining industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.

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. North Mining Shares can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, North Mining Shares 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at North Mining Shares 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 Metal Mining industry.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, North Mining Shares is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. North Mining Shares can utilize new technology in the field of Metal Mining industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

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Threats North Mining Shares External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of North Mining Shares are -

Environmental challenges

– North Mining Shares 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. North Mining Shares can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Metal Mining industry.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, North Mining Shares may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Metal Mining sector.

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 North Mining Shares in the Metal Mining sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– North Mining Shares 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 Metal Mining industry.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– North Mining Shares 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 Metal Mining industry are lowering. It can presents North Mining Shares with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Metal Mining sector.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– North Mining Shares has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Metal Mining industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, North Mining Shares needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Metal Mining 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.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Metal Mining industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. North Mining Shares can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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 North Mining Shares.

Increasing wage structure of North Mining Shares

– 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 North Mining Shares.

Consumer confidence and its impact on North Mining Shares 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 Metal Mining industry and other sectors.

Regulatory challenges

– North Mining Shares 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 Metal Mining industry regulations.

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. North Mining Shares 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of North Mining Shares Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at North Mining Shares 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 North Mining Shares 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 North Mining Shares 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 North Mining Shares 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 North Mining Shares needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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