SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for NKWE Platinum (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , NKWE Platinum is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that NKWE Platinum can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the NKWE Platinum, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which NKWE Platinum 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 NKWE Platinum can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of NKWE Platinum
2. Improving business portfolio management of NKWE Platinum
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Metal Mining sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of NKWE Platinum
Strengths of NKWE Platinum | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of NKWE Platinum are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of NKWE Platinum 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Metal Mining industry
– NKWE Platinum has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled NKWE Platinum to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Metal Mining industry. The sustainable margins have also helped NKWE Platinum to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– NKWE Platinum is present in almost all the verticals within the Metal Mining industry. This has provided NKWE Platinum 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– NKWE Platinum has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – NKWE Platinum staying ahead in the Metal Mining industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of NKWE Platinum in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. NKWE Platinum has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps NKWE Platinum to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– NKWE Platinum has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled NKWE Platinum to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– NKWE Platinum is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry in Australia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Australia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that NKWE Platinum 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.
Digital Transformation in Metal Mining industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For NKWE Platinum digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. NKWE Platinum 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the NKWE Platinum 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.
Organizational Resilience of NKWE Platinum
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing NKWE Platinum does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– NKWE Platinum is one of the most innovative firm in Metal Mining sector.
Weaknesses of NKWE Platinum | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of NKWE Platinum are -
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 NKWE Platinum supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, NKWE Platinum is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left NKWE Platinum vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of NKWE Platinum products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, NKWE Platinum needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ less understanding of NKWE Platinum strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of NKWE Platinum 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that NKWE Platinum needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Metal Mining industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at NKWE Platinum can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as NKWE Platinum is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of NKWE Platinum, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Metal Mining 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, NKWE Platinum has high operating costs in the Metal Mining industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract NKWE Platinum lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
NKWE Platinum has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Metal Mining industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Metal Mining industry, NKWE Platinum 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 NKWE Platinum ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of NKWE Platinum 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 NKWE Platinum has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of NKWE Platinum 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of NKWE Platinum is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Metal Mining industry, but NKWE Platinum needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help NKWE Platinum to focus more on services in the Metal Mining industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
NKWE Platinum Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of NKWE Platinum are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for NKWE Platinum 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, NKWE Platinum 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 NKWE Platinum to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for NKWE Platinum 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 Metal Mining industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for NKWE Platinum in the Metal Mining industry. Now NKWE Platinum can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, NKWE Platinum 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.
Loyalty marketing
– NKWE Platinum 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.
Buying journey improvements
– NKWE Platinum 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. NKWE Platinum can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, NKWE Platinum is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. NKWE Platinum can utilize new technology in the field of Metal Mining industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Metal Mining industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. NKWE Platinum 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. NKWE Platinum 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of NKWE Platinum has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Metal Mining industry. This can help NKWE Platinum to build a more holistic ecosystem for NKWE Platinum products in the Metal Mining industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for NKWE Platinum 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 NKWE Platinum to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– NKWE Platinum 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.
Threats NKWE Platinum External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of NKWE Platinum are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, NKWE Platinum may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Metal Mining sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on NKWE Platinum 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.
Environmental challenges
– NKWE Platinum 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. NKWE Platinum can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Metal Mining industry.
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. NKWE Platinum 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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that NKWE Platinum is facing in Metal Mining sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– NKWE Platinum 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 Metal Mining industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– NKWE Platinum has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Metal Mining industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, NKWE Platinum 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.
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. NKWE Platinum can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– NKWE Platinum 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for NKWE Platinum 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, NKWE Platinum 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 NKWE Platinum prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Metal Mining industry are lowering. It can presents NKWE Platinum with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Metal Mining sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of NKWE Platinum Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at NKWE Platinum 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 NKWE Platinum 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 NKWE Platinum 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 NKWE Platinum 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 NKWE Platinum needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.