Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Finance & Accounting
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing
This microeconomics case examines the pricing issues related to the sale of inexpensive vaccines for use in developing countries. The case describe the historic success of the United Nations' so-called "tiered pricing" policy. This policy had allowed the World Health Organization to purchase large volumes of vaccines at the marginal price of vaccine production-often just a few cents per dose-while developed nations paid the full average cost-often many times more. Changing political circumstances and the cost structure of new vaccines threaten the decades-old arrangement, however. HKS Case Number 1450.0
Swot Analysis of "Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing" written by Susan Rosegrant, Jose Gomez-Ibanez includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Vaccines Tiered facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Economics, Entrepreneurial finance, Health, Policy, Pricing, Social responsibility and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is backlash against globalization, increasing commodity prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , technology disruption,
increasing energy prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Vaccines Tiered, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Vaccines Tiered 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 Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Vaccines Tiered
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Finance & Accounting field.
4. Making a Finance & Accounting topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Vaccines Tiered
Strengths Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Vaccines Tiered in Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Vaccines Tiered has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Vaccines Tiered in the sector have low bargaining power. Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Vaccines Tiered to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Vaccines Tiered has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management
– Vaccines Tiered is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Finance & Accounting industry
– Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Vaccines Tiered to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Vaccines Tiered to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Vaccines Tiered is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing case study 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.
Learning organization
- Vaccines Tiered 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 Vaccines Tiered is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Vaccines Tiered 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.
Digital Transformation in Finance & Accounting segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Vaccines Tiered digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Vaccines Tiered 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Vaccines Tiered is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Training and development
– Vaccines Tiered has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Weaknesses Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing are -
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Vaccines Tiered has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Vaccines Tiered 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 industry using digital technology.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing, is just above the industry average. Vaccines Tiered 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Vaccines Tiered 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Vaccines Tiered has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Vaccines Tiered 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Vaccines Tiered, firm in the HBR case study Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Vaccines Tiered is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Susan Rosegrant, Jose Gomez-Ibanez suggests that, Vaccines Tiered 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 industry.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Vaccines Tiered 's lucrative customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing, it seems that the employees of Vaccines Tiered 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Vaccines Tiered 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.
Opportunities Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Vaccines Tiered is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology 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 Vaccines Tiered 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 Vaccines Tiered to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Vaccines Tiered in the consumer business. Now Vaccines Tiered can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Vaccines Tiered 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
– Vaccines Tiered can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing suggest that firm 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Vaccines Tiered 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 Finance & Accounting segment.
Developing new processes and practices
– Vaccines Tiered can develop new processes and procedures in Finance & Accounting 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.
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 Vaccines Tiered 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Vaccines Tiered can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Vaccines Tiered can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Vaccines Tiered operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Finance & Accounting sector.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Finance & Accounting industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Vaccines Tiered can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Finance & Accounting industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Vaccines Tiered 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. Vaccines Tiered 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Vaccines Tiered to increase its market reach. Vaccines Tiered 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.
Threats Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Vaccines Tiered has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Finance & Accounting industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Vaccines Tiered needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Finance & Accounting 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Vaccines Tiered with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Vaccines Tiered 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.
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 Vaccines Tiered.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Vaccines Tiered 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 field.
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 Vaccines Tiered in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Vaccines Tiered
– 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 Vaccines Tiered.
Environmental challenges
– Vaccines Tiered 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. Vaccines Tiered can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Vaccines Tiered 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 Finance & Accounting industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Vaccines Tiered 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 prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing .
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.
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 Vaccines Tiered business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Vaccines Tiered 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 the industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing 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 the case study Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing 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 the Harvard case study Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing 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 Vaccines for the Developing World: The Challenge to Justify Tiered Pricing is 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 Vaccines Tiered needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.