Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited SWOT Analysis / Matrix

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SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited managers to do a situational analysis of the organization . It is an important technique to evalauate the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited is facing in its current business environment.

The Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited is one of the leading firms in its industry. Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited maintains its dominant position in market by critically analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis an immensenly interactive process and requires effective coordination among various departments within the company such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.

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The SWOT Analysis framework facilitates an organization to identify the internal strategic factors such as -strengths and weaknesses, & external strategic factors such as - opportunities and threats. It leads to a 2X2 matrix – also known as SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited to develop four types of strategies:

SO (strengths-opportunities) Strategies
WO (weaknesses-opportunities) Strategies
ST (strengths-threats) Strategies
WT (weaknesses-threats) Strategies

Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited swot analysis / matrix

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The main purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that an organization can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited has numerous strengths that enable it to thrive in the market place. These strengths not only help it to protect the market share in existing markets but also help in penetrating new markets. Based on Fern Fort University extensive research – some of the strengths of Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited are –

Read - Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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Successful track record of integrating complimentary firms through mergers & acquisition. It has successfully integrated number of technology companies in the past few years to streamline its operations and to build a reliable supply chain.
Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
Strong distribution network – Over the years Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
Superb Performance in New Markets – Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited has built expertise at entering new markets and making success of them. The expansion has helped the organization to build new revenue stream and diversify the economic cycle risk in the markets it operates in.
Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited is investing huge resources in training and development of its employees resulting in a workforce that is not only highly skilled but also motivated to achieve more.
Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.

Weakness of Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where an organization can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its competitive advantage and strategic positioning.

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The company has not being able to tackle the challenges present by the new entrants in the segment and has lost small market share in the niche categories. Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
Not very good at product demand forecasting leading to higher rate of missed opportunities compare to its competitors. One of the reason why the days inventory is high compare to its competitors is that Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited needs to put more money in technology to integrate the processes across the board. Right now the investment in technologies is not at par with the vision of the company.
High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited are below the industry average.
Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.

Opportunities for Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited – External Strategic Factors

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Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited to capture new customers and increase its market share.
The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited’s products thus providing an opportunity to the company - either to boost its profitability or pass on the benefits to the customers to gain market share.
The new technology provides an opportunity to Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited to practices differentiated pricing strategy in the new market. It will enable the firm to maintain its loyal customers with great service and lure new customers through other value oriented propositions.
Organization’s core competencies can be a success in similar other products field. A comparative example could be - GE healthcare research helped it in developing better Oil drilling machines.
Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited.
Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited products by the state as well as federal government contractors.

Threats Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited Facing - External Strategic Factors

Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited profitability.
As the company is operating in numerous countries it is exposed to currency fluctuations especially given the volatile political climate in number of markets across the world.
The demand of the highly profitable products is seasonal in nature and any unlikely event during the peak season may impact the profitability of the company in short to medium term.
New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
Liability laws in different countries are different and Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
Intense competition – Stable profitability has increased the number of players in the industry over last two years which has put downward pressure on not only profitability but also on overall sales.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited

Although the SWOT analysis is widely used as a strategic planning tool, the analysis does have its share of limitations.

Certain capabilities or factors of an organization can be both a strength and weakness at the same time. This is one of the major limitations of SWOT analysis . For example changing environmental regulations can be both a threat to company it can also be an opportunity in a sense that it will enable the company to be on a level playing field or at advantage to competitors if it able to develop the products faster than the competitors.
SWOT does not show how to achieve a competitive advantage, so it must not be an end in itself.
The matrix is only a starting point for a discussion on how proposed strategies could be implemented. It provided an evaluation window but not an implementation plan based on strategic competitiveness of Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited
SWOT is a static assessment - analysis of status quo with few prospective changes. As circumstances, capabilities, threats, and strategies change, the dynamics of a competitive environment may not be revealed in a single matrix.
SWOT analysis may lead the firm to overemphasize a single internal or external factor in formulating strategies. There are interrelationships among the key internal and external factors that SWOT does not reveal that may be important in devising strategies.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited

In light of the above mentioned limitations of the SWOT analysis / matrix, corporate managers decided to provide weightage to each internal strength and weakness of the firm. Organizations also assess the likelihood of events taking place in the coming future and how strong their impact could be on company's performance.

This method is called Weighted SWOT analysis. It is better than doing simplistic SWOT analysis because with Weighted SWOT Analysis Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited managers can focus on the most critical factors and discount the non-important one. It also solves the long list problem where organizations ends up making a long list but none of the factors deemed too critical.

Limitation of Weighted SWOT analysis of Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited

This approach also suffers from one major drawback - it focus on individual importance of factor rather than how they are collectively important and impact the business holistically.

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Example of Weighted SWOT Analysis

You can email us to get an example document of Weighted SWOT analysis.

SWOT Worksheet & Template

If you like to do your own SWOT analysis or want to make your own Weighted SWOT SWOT matrix then feel free to download Fern Fort University SWOT Analysis Template.

References / Citations & Bibliography

M. E. Porter, Competitive Strategy(New York: Free Press, 1980)
A. D. Chandler, Strategy and Structure (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1962)
O. E. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies(New York: Free Press, 1975);
L. Wrigley, Divisional Autonomy and Diversification (PhD, Harvard Business School, 1970)
R. E. White, Generic Business Strategies, Organizational Context and Performance: An Empirical Investigation, Strategic Management Journal7 (1986)