Khind (KHIN) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Appliance & Tool
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Khind (Malaysia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Khind is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Khind can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Khind, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Khind 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 Khind can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Khind
2. Improving business portfolio management of Khind
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Malaysia
4. Making a Appliance & Tool sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Khind
Strengths of Khind | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Khind are -
High brand equity
– Khind has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Khind to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Khind has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Khind staying ahead in the Appliance & Tool industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Khind comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Appliance & Tool 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Khind is one of the leading players in the Appliance & Tool industry in Malaysia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Malaysia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Analytics focus
– Khind 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 Appliance & Tool industry. The technology infrastructure of Malaysia 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Khind in the Consumer Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Khind has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Khind to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Khind is one of the most innovative firm in Appliance & Tool sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– Khind is present in almost all the verticals within the Appliance & Tool industry. This has provided Khind 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.
Ability to lead change in Appliance & Tool
– Khind is one of the leading players in the Appliance & Tool industry in Malaysia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Appliance & Tool industry in Malaysia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Khind in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Khind in Appliance & Tool industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Khind 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 Khind is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Khind emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Khind has one of the best training and development program in Consumer Cyclical 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.
Weaknesses of Khind | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Khind are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Khind 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 Khind strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Khind 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 Khind is just above the Appliance & Tool 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Malaysia, Khind needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Khind, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Appliance & Tool 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Khind needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Appliance & Tool industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Khind can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Khind is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Khind has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Appliance & Tool industry over the last five years. Khind 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 harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Khind is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Khind to provide better information regarding Appliance & Tool products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
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 Khind supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Khind is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Khind vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Khind has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Appliance & Tool industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Khind is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Appliance & Tool industry, but Khind needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Khind to focus more on services in the Appliance & Tool industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Khind Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Khind are -
Buying journey improvements
– Khind can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Appliance & Tool 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Khind in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Appliance & Tool industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Khind is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Khind can utilize new technology in the field of Appliance & Tool industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Khind 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Khind 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Khind 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 Khind 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 Appliance & Tool industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Khind in the Appliance & Tool industry. Now Khind can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Khind can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Khind operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Appliance & Tool sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Khind has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Appliance & Tool industry. This can help Khind to build a more holistic ecosystem for Khind products in the Appliance & Tool industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Khind can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Appliance & Tool sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Developing new processes and practices
– Khind can develop new processes and procedures in Appliance & Tool 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. Khind can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Appliance & Tool industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Khind 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. Khind 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.
Threats Khind External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Khind are -
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 Khind business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Khind.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Khind is facing in Appliance & Tool sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Khind may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Appliance & Tool sector.
Environmental challenges
– Khind 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. Khind can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Appliance & Tool industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Khind 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Appliance & Tool industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Khind 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 Khind in Appliance & Tool industry. The Appliance & Tool 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Khind 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 Appliance & Tool industry regulations.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Khind 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 Appliance & Tool industry and other sectors.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Khind 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 Khind prominent markets.
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. Khind needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Appliance & Tool industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Khind has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Appliance & Tool industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Khind needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Appliance & Tool 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Khind Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Khind 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 Khind 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 Khind 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 Khind 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 Khind needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
