Kin Mining NL (KIN) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Gold & Silver
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Kin Mining NL (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Kin Mining NL is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Kin Mining NL can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Kin Mining NL, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Kin Mining NL 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 Kin Mining NL can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Kin Mining NL
2. Improving business portfolio management of Kin Mining NL
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Gold & Silver sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Kin Mining NL
Strengths of Kin Mining NL | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Kin Mining NL are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Kin Mining NL 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.
Training and development
– Kin Mining NL 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Kin Mining NL in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Kin Mining NL has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Kin Mining NL to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Kin Mining NL in Gold & Silver industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Kin Mining NL
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Kin Mining NL does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Kin Mining NL 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.
High brand equity
– Kin Mining NL has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Kin Mining NL to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Kin Mining NL 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 Kin Mining NL is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Kin Mining NL emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Gold & Silver industry
– Kin Mining NL has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Kin Mining NL to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Gold & Silver industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Kin Mining NL to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Kin Mining NL comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Gold & Silver 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.
Analytics focus
– Kin Mining NL 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 Gold & Silver industry. The technology infrastructure of Australia 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Kin Mining NL is present in almost all the verticals within the Gold & Silver industry. This has provided Kin Mining NL 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.
Weaknesses of Kin Mining NL | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Kin Mining NL are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Kin Mining NL has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Gold & Silver industry over the last five years. Kin Mining NL 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Kin Mining NL is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Gold & Silver industry in last five years.
Lack of clear differentiation of Kin Mining NL products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Kin Mining NL needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Gold & Silver industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Kin Mining NL is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Gold & Silver industry.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Kin Mining NL is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Kin Mining NL to provide better information regarding Gold & Silver products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Gold & Silver industry, Kin Mining NL 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.
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 Kin Mining NL supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Kin Mining NL is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Kin Mining NL vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Skills based hiring in Gold & Silver industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Kin Mining NL 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Kin Mining NL has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Gold & Silver industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Kin Mining NL needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Kin Mining NL needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Gold & Silver industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Kin Mining NL can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Kin Mining NL is planning to shift buying processes online.
Kin Mining NL Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Kin Mining NL are -
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. Kin Mining NL can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Kin Mining NL 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.
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 Kin Mining NL 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Kin Mining NL can develop new processes and procedures in Gold & Silver 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Kin Mining NL 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 Kin Mining NL to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Gold & Silver industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Kin Mining NL in the Gold & Silver industry. Now Kin Mining NL can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Kin Mining NL in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Gold & Silver industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Gold & Silver industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Kin Mining NL can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Kin Mining NL has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Gold & Silver industry. This can help Kin Mining NL to build a more holistic ecosystem for Kin Mining NL products in the Gold & Silver industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Kin Mining NL can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Kin Mining NL 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Gold & Silver industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Kin Mining NL 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. Kin Mining NL 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Kin Mining NL 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 Kin Mining NL to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Kin Mining NL External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Kin Mining NL are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Gold & Silver industry are lowering. It can presents Kin Mining NL with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Gold & Silver 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 Kin Mining NL in the Gold & Silver sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Kin Mining NL 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 Gold & Silver industry and other sectors.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Kin Mining NL has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Gold & Silver industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Kin Mining NL needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Gold & Silver 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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Kin Mining NL is facing in Gold & Silver sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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 Kin Mining NL.
Increasing wage structure of Kin Mining NL
– 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 Kin Mining NL.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Gold & Silver industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Kin Mining NL can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Kin Mining NL 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 Kin Mining NL prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Kin Mining NL may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Gold & Silver sector.
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. Kin Mining NL needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Gold & Silver industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Kin Mining NL Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Kin Mining NL 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 Kin Mining NL 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 Kin Mining NL 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 Kin Mining NL 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 Kin Mining NL needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
