Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
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Strategy / MBA Resources
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Case Study Description of Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals?
Sometimes, friendly acquisitions feel more like friendly fire. After all, a job lost is a job lost. Such was Lek Pharmaceuticals' concern over its recent sale to a larger interest. Based in Slovenia, the home-grown industry feared losses of employment, identity, and creative freedom. Lek employed people in 20 countries, so even the slightest change would have loud repercussions. But Lek's strategic planning director was charged with just that: change. How was he to conduct this transition? And wasn't there a pill for this?
Swot Analysis of "Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals?" written by Lynn Isabella includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Lek Pharmaceuticals facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Lek Pharmaceuticals, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Lek Pharmaceuticals 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 Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Lek Pharmaceuticals
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Global Business field.
4. Making a Global Business topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Lek Pharmaceuticals
Strengths Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Lek Pharmaceuticals in Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Lek Pharmaceuticals 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 Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Lek Pharmaceuticals has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? 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.
Ability to lead change in Global Business field
– Lek Pharmaceuticals is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Lek Pharmaceuticals in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Lek Pharmaceuticals in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Lek Pharmaceuticals 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 Lek Pharmaceuticals
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Lek Pharmaceuticals does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Lek Pharmaceuticals is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Lek Pharmaceuticals 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Lek Pharmaceuticals 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 Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Global Business segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Lek Pharmaceuticals digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Lek Pharmaceuticals 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 Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Lek Pharmaceuticals in the sector have low bargaining power. Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Lek Pharmaceuticals to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Lek Pharmaceuticals has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Lek Pharmaceuticals is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Lek Pharmaceuticals 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals?, in the dynamic environment Lek Pharmaceuticals has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Lek Pharmaceuticals has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Lek Pharmaceuticals, firm in the HBR case study Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? 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 Lek Pharmaceuticals 's lucrative customers.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? 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 Lek Pharmaceuticals has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals?, is just above the industry average. Lek Pharmaceuticals 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Lek Pharmaceuticals products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Lek Pharmaceuticals needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Lek Pharmaceuticals 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Lek Pharmaceuticals 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. Lek Pharmaceuticals 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.
Opportunities Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? | 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 Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Lek Pharmaceuticals 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Lek Pharmaceuticals 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Lek Pharmaceuticals can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Global Business segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Lek Pharmaceuticals can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Lek Pharmaceuticals operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Global Business sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Lek Pharmaceuticals can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Lek Pharmaceuticals is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Lek Pharmaceuticals to increase its market reach. Lek Pharmaceuticals 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Lek Pharmaceuticals 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 Global Business segment.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Global Business industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Lek Pharmaceuticals can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Lek Pharmaceuticals has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Lek Pharmaceuticals to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? case study. Lek Pharmaceuticals can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Lek Pharmaceuticals in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Global Business segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Global Business industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Lek Pharmaceuticals 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. Lek Pharmaceuticals 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Lek Pharmaceuticals can develop new processes and procedures in Global Business 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.
Threats Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals?, Lek Pharmaceuticals may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Global Business .
Increasing wage structure of Lek Pharmaceuticals
– 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 Lek Pharmaceuticals.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Lek Pharmaceuticals 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 Lek Pharmaceuticals with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Lek Pharmaceuticals 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 Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Lek Pharmaceuticals has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Lek Pharmaceuticals needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Global Business 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.
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 Lek Pharmaceuticals is facing in Global Business sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Lek Pharmaceuticals 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Lek Pharmaceuticals in the Global Business industry. The Global Business 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.
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 Lek Pharmaceuticals.
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 Lek Pharmaceuticals business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? 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 Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? 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 Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? 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 Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? 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 Maintaining Identity After Acquisition: What's Next for Lek Pharmaceuticals? 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 Lek Pharmaceuticals needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.