Kitkat

KitKat

KitKat was launched by Rowintree in 1935 as Chocolate Crisp. The market performance of Kitkat has been pretty optimistic. Since the Chocolate confectionery market is very concentrated, stable and competitive.

KitKat has enough strength to take the opportunities to do better and stay higher in its industry. However, there are some company's weaknesses which would bring some threats for KitKat.

The SWOT analysis:

Its major and minor strengths of KitKat:

1. Strong team work.

2. The business is well-established; company has enough financial strength to keep up with the advertisement and promotions of the product.

3. Its company is working on the brand image and its brand will maintain clear position in order to prevent cannibalization.

4. The company has been positioned of number one brand in 1999 in UK.

5. The company believes long-term brand which means it will bring competitive advantage to KitKat over their competitors.

6. Widely known slogan.

7. Different from competitor's range of product, packaging and taste.

8. Implement different management strategy, which is open style, strong team work, which can lead to more productive and cost saving, and more creative ideas for improvement and development.

9. The productivity is quite fair and it is growing.

10. Sales volume is all-time high in the UK and the consumer values are very competitive.

11. Positive investment and adding new plants.

Weaknesses:

1. Still spending a big amount on the advertisement.

2. Don't have a strong special feature of its product.

3. Can not deliver better benefit than its competitors.

4. Sales profit was not very impressive.

5. They have "reverse marketing relationship" with their supply-packaging suppliers.

6. High operating cost and slight price increase in its product.

7. It positioning was not well distinguished inside the company, it is now positioned half way between snack and indulgency, but in consumer's eye, it is snacks oriented.

Opportunities:

1. Consumer spending on confectionery had been rising, there is a positive trend towards in snacking.

2. The consumers in the confectionery industry has their own taste preferences and brand loyal, so there is chances to increase sales and profit.

3. Through working on the brand equity and its image can attract more consumers and keep the existing customers.

4. The market is very concentrated, so it can reach more potential customers by its production diversification.

5. Improved customers service will bring the business more loyalty customers.

6. The increasing of profitability can be increased and have a strong financial base for more marketing activities and expand its business.

7. Making more profit as sales maintain and goes up over time.

8. Lint extension of KitKat.

9. The company can meet eh need for more information and advice.

10. The company can introduce new facilities to improve the productivity.

11. It can offer a lower price by economies of scale.

Threats:

1. Tough economic environment and the competition in the confectionery industry, total sales are significantly lower than planned.

2. Company does not carry stocks of packs; they call off packaging and print through the company's suppliers "just in time". So it can miss the opportunity of meet the large order of quantities from retailers, they may fail to meet the large demand in the special cases.

3. High operating cost lead to the reduction in its profit, and thus influence on future development and improvement.

4. Increasing competition may force it to improvement and be innovative, if there should be price war, KitKat has to manage to decrease it production cost in order to make the minimal profit in order to stay in the business.

5. There can be growing competition and more potential competitors.

6. Competitors may develop better technology to produce similar product but with lower prices.