Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Future Bright Mining is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Future Bright Mining
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Future Bright Mining can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Future Bright Mining, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Future Bright Mining 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 Future Bright Mining can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Future Bright Mining
2. Improving business portfolio management of Future Bright Mining
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Construction - Raw Materials sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Future Bright Mining
Strengths of Future Bright Mining | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Future Bright Mining are -
Organizational Resilience of Future Bright Mining
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Future Bright Mining does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Future Bright Mining 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Future Bright Mining comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Future Bright Mining has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Future Bright Mining 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Construction - Raw Materials industry
– Future Bright Mining has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Future Bright Mining to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Construction - Raw Materials industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Future Bright Mining to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Future Bright Mining has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Future Bright Mining to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Future Bright Mining has one of the best training and development program in Capital Goods 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Future Bright Mining has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Future Bright Mining staying ahead in the Construction - Raw Materials industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Future Bright Mining 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Future Bright Mining is one of the leading players in the Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Future Bright Mining is present in almost all the verticals within the Construction - Raw Materials industry. This has provided Future Bright Mining 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.
Analytics focus
– Future Bright Mining 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 Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Weaknesses of Future Bright Mining | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Future Bright Mining are -
Need for greater diversity
– Future Bright Mining 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Future Bright Mining has high operating costs in the Construction - Raw Materials industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Future Bright Mining lucrative customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Future Bright Mining needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Construction - Raw Materials industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Future Bright Mining can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Future Bright Mining is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Future Bright Mining 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.
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 Future Bright Mining supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Future Bright Mining is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Future Bright Mining vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Future Bright Mining has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Construction - Raw Materials industry using digital technology.
Employees’ less understanding of Future Bright Mining strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Future Bright Mining 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Future Bright Mining, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Construction - Raw Materials 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.
High dependence on Future Bright Mining ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Future Bright Mining still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Construction - Raw Materials industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Future Bright Mining has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Future Bright Mining has some of the most successful models in the Construction - Raw Materials industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Future Bright Mining should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Future Bright Mining, in the dynamic environment of Construction - Raw Materials industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Future Bright Mining has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Future Bright Mining Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Future Bright Mining 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 Future Bright Mining 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Future Bright Mining has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Construction - Raw Materials sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Future Bright Mining to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Future Bright Mining to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Future Bright Mining 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 Future Bright Mining to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Future Bright Mining can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Future Bright Mining operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Construction - Raw Materials sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Future Bright Mining 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Future Bright Mining 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.
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. Future Bright Mining can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Future Bright Mining is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Future Bright Mining can utilize new technology in the field of Construction - Raw Materials industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Future Bright Mining can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Future Bright Mining 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Future Bright Mining 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Construction - Raw Materials industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Future Bright Mining can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Future Bright Mining to increase its market reach. Future Bright Mining 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.
Threats Future Bright Mining External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Future Bright Mining are -
Increasing wage structure of Future Bright Mining
– 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 Future Bright Mining.
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. Future Bright Mining 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Future Bright Mining has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Construction - Raw Materials industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Future Bright Mining needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Future Bright Mining 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 Future Bright Mining prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Future Bright Mining in Construction - Raw Materials industry. The Construction - Raw Materials 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Future Bright Mining 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.
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. Future Bright Mining needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Construction - Raw Materials industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Future Bright Mining in the Construction - Raw Materials sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Future Bright Mining may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Construction - Raw Materials sector.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Construction - Raw Materials industry are lowering. It can presents Future Bright Mining with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Construction - Raw Materials sector.
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 Future Bright Mining business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Future Bright Mining 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 Construction - Raw Materials industry.
Environmental challenges
– Future Bright Mining 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. Future Bright Mining can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Construction - Raw Materials industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Future Bright Mining Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Future Bright Mining 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 Future Bright Mining 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 Future Bright Mining 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 Future Bright Mining 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 Future Bright Mining needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.