Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Finance & Accounting
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader
For the Novartis leaders, the decision to "use stretch budgets again next year" highlights the tension between candor and empowerment and command-and-control, between the new and the old, between high performance and business as usual, between Ciba and Sandoz. Management must decide what kind of company and culture they want to build.
Swot Analysis of "Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader" written by Srikant M. Datar, Carin-Isabel Knoop includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Novartis Candor facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Budgeting, Change management, Collaboration, Health, Mergers & acquisitions, Time management and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Novartis Candor, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Novartis Candor 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 Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Novartis Candor
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 Novartis Candor
Strengths Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Novartis Candor in Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Novartis Candor 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 Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Novartis Candor
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Novartis Candor does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Novartis Candor is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Diverse revenue streams
– Novartis Candor is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Novartis Candor in the sector have low bargaining power. Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Novartis Candor to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Novartis Candor 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Novartis Candor in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Novartis Candor 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
– Novartis Candor has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader 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.
Learning organization
- Novartis Candor 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 Novartis Candor is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Novartis Candor has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Novartis Candor 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.
Weaknesses Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Novartis Candor 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. Novartis Candor 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader, it seems that the employees of Novartis Candor 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Novartis Candor 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader 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 Novartis Candor 's lucrative customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Novartis Candor 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Novartis Candor products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Novartis Candor needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader 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 Novartis Candor has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Finance & Accounting strategy. 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 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 Novartis Candor supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Novartis Candor vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Novartis Candor has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Novartis Candor is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Opportunities Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader | 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 Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Novartis Candor can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Novartis Candor operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Finance & Accounting sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Novartis Candor to increase its market reach. Novartis Candor 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Novartis Candor 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
– Novartis Candor has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Novartis Candor to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Novartis Candor can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Developing new processes and practices
– Novartis Candor 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Novartis Candor 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Novartis Candor 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Novartis Candor 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Novartis Candor 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, as suggested in case study, Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Novartis Candor 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. Novartis Candor 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Novartis Candor 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 Novartis Candor to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Novartis Candor is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader 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.
Threats Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader are -
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. Novartis Candor needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Finance & Accounting industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Novartis Candor 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Novartis Candor with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Novartis Candor 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader, Novartis Candor may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Finance & Accounting .
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Novartis Candor in the Finance & Accounting industry. The Finance & Accounting 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Novartis Candor 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Novartis Candor 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 wage structure of Novartis Candor
– 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 Novartis Candor.
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 Novartis Candor in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline 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 Novartis Candor 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 Novartis Candor.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader 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 Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader 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 Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader 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 Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader 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 Novartis (A): Being a Global Leader 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 Novartis Candor needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
