Kindred Group (0RDS) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Kindred Group (United Kingdom)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Kindred Group is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Kindred Group

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Kindred Group can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Kindred Group, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Kindred Group 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 Kindred Group can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Kindred Group
2. Improving business portfolio management of Kindred Group
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Casinos & Gaming sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Kindred Group

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Strengths of Kindred Group | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Kindred Group are -

Ability to lead change in Casinos & Gaming

– Kindred Group is one of the leading players in the Casinos & Gaming industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Casinos & Gaming industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Kindred Group in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Kindred Group has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Kindred Group 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Casinos & Gaming industry

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

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Kindred Group comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Casinos & Gaming 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Kindred Group is present in almost all the verticals within the Casinos & Gaming industry. This has provided Kindred Group 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Kindred Group has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Casinos & Gaming industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Kindred Group have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Kindred Group is one of the leading players in the Casinos & Gaming industry in United Kingdom. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United Kingdom. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Casinos & Gaming industry

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

Digital Transformation in Casinos & Gaming industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Kindred Group digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Kindred Group 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.

Organizational Resilience of Kindred Group

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

Training and development

– Kindred Group has one of the best training and development program in Services 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)

– Kindred Group has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Kindred Group staying ahead in the Casinos & Gaming industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

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Weaknesses of Kindred Group | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Kindred Group are -

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Kindred Group is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Casinos & Gaming industry, but Kindred Group needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Kindred Group to focus more on services in the Casinos & Gaming industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Skills based hiring in Casinos & Gaming industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Kindred Group 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.

Employees’ less understanding of Kindred Group strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Kindred Group 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Kindred Group is just above the Casinos & Gaming industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.

Need for greater diversity

– Kindred Group 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.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Kindred Group has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Casinos & Gaming industry over the last five years. Kindred Group 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.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Kindred Group, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Casinos & Gaming 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 operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Kindred Group has high operating costs in the Casinos & Gaming industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Kindred Group lucrative customers.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Kindred Group has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Casinos & Gaming industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Kindred Group has some of the most successful models in the Casinos & Gaming industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Kindred Group should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Casinos & Gaming industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Kindred Group 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 Casinos & Gaming industry.

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Kindred Group Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Kindred Group are -

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Kindred Group 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 Casinos & Gaming industry.

Buying journey improvements

– Kindred Group can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Casinos & Gaming 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.

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 Kindred Group 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

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

Developing new processes and practices

– Kindred Group can develop new processes and procedures in Casinos & Gaming 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

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

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Kindred Group 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 Kindred Group to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Kindred Group can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Kindred Group operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Casinos & Gaming sector.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Kindred Group 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Kindred Group 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.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Casinos & Gaming industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Kindred Group in the Casinos & Gaming industry. Now Kindred Group can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Kindred Group to increase its market reach. Kindred Group 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Kindred Group 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.

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Threats Kindred Group External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Kindred Group are -

Learning curve for new practices

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

Easy access to finance

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

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Kindred Group in Casinos & Gaming industry. The Casinos & Gaming 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.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Casinos & Gaming industry are lowering. It can presents Kindred Group with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Casinos & Gaming sector.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Kindred Group 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.

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.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Kindred Group 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 Kindred Group prominent markets.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Kindred Group 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 Casinos & Gaming industry and other sectors.

Environmental challenges

– Kindred Group 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. Kindred Group can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Casinos & Gaming industry.

Increasing wage structure of Kindred Group

– 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 Kindred Group.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Kindred Group is facing in Casinos & Gaming sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

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.

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. Kindred Group 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 Kindred Group Template, Example

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

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