King-Strong New Material (300629) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Metal Mining
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for King-Strong New Material (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , King-Strong New Material is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of King-Strong New Material
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that King-Strong New Material can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the King-Strong New Material, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which King-Strong New Material 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 King-Strong New Material can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of King-Strong New Material
2. Improving business portfolio management of King-Strong New Material
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Metal Mining sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of King-Strong New Material
Strengths of King-Strong New Material | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of King-Strong New Material are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that King-Strong New Material 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of King-Strong New Material in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. King-Strong New Material has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps King-Strong New Material to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of King-Strong New Material in Metal Mining industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Metal Mining
– King-Strong New Material is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Metal Mining industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled King-Strong New Material in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the Metal Mining industry
– King-Strong New Material is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– King-Strong New Material 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.
High brand equity
– King-Strong New Material has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled King-Strong New Material to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the King-Strong New Material 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– King-Strong New Material has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. King-Strong New Material 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of King-Strong New Material comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Metal Mining 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– King-Strong New Material has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Metal Mining industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of King-Strong New Material have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Metal Mining industry
– King-Strong New Material has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled King-Strong New Material to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Metal Mining industry. The sustainable margins have also helped King-Strong New Material to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of King-Strong New Material | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of King-Strong New Material are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, King-Strong New Material 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 Metal Mining industry using digital technology.
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 King-Strong New Material supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, King-Strong New Material is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left King-Strong New Material vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As King-Strong New Material is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Metal Mining industry in last five years.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Metal Mining industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, King-Strong New Material 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 Metal Mining industry.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of King-Strong New Material is just above the Metal Mining 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, King-Strong New Material 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 King-Strong New Material ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of King-Strong New Material still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Metal Mining industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though King-Strong New Material has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring in Metal Mining industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at King-Strong New Material 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at King-Strong New Material, in the dynamic environment of Metal Mining industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. King-Strong New Material has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Metal Mining industry, King-Strong New Material 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, King-Strong New Material is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help King-Strong New Material to provide better information regarding Metal Mining products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
King-Strong New Material Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of King-Strong New Material are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– King-Strong New Material 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– King-Strong New Material has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Metal Mining sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled King-Strong New Material to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help King-Strong New Material 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, King-Strong New Material 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 King-Strong New Material to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at King-Strong New Material 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 Metal Mining industry.
Loyalty marketing
– King-Strong New Material 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Metal Mining industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for King-Strong New Material in the Metal Mining industry. Now King-Strong New Material can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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 King-Strong New Material 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of King-Strong New Material has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Metal Mining industry. This can help King-Strong New Material to build a more holistic ecosystem for King-Strong New Material products in the Metal Mining industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, King-Strong New Material 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.
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. King-Strong New Material can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for King-Strong New Material in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Metal Mining industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– King-Strong New Material can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Metal Mining 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Metal Mining industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. King-Strong New Material can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats King-Strong New Material External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of King-Strong New Material are -
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Metal Mining industry are lowering. It can presents King-Strong New Material with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Metal Mining sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for King-Strong New Material in Metal Mining industry. The Metal Mining 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.
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 King-Strong New Material business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on King-Strong New Material 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 Metal Mining industry and other sectors.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– King-Strong New Material has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Metal Mining industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, King-Strong New Material needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Metal Mining 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 wage structure of King-Strong New Material
– 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 King-Strong New Material.
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. King-Strong New Material needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Metal Mining industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– King-Strong New Material 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 Metal Mining industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Metal Mining industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. King-Strong New Material can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– King-Strong New Material 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.
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 King-Strong New Material in the Metal Mining sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of King-Strong New Material Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at King-Strong New Material 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 King-Strong New Material 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 King-Strong New Material 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 King-Strong New Material 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 King-Strong New Material needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.