AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients
David Brennan, CEO of AstraZeneca UK Limited (AZN), was passionate about bringing new medicines to patients. But the industry was transforming to one that featured less patent protection, more competition from generic drugs, stiffer government regulations, and decreased productivity in R&D. The strategy? Build a pipeline with new prescription drugs that were unique enough to provide a differentiated benefit to patients, grow the business globally, streamline the organization and increase efficiency, and build a culture of courage, creativity, and collaboration. Would the firm be able to provide a sustainable and consistent pipeline of new products-at lower cost, likely with fewer people? How might the firm average two new products to market each year? What areas of R&D should the company invest in, and what would the R&D transformation look like?
Swot Analysis of "AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients" written by Scott Snell, Gerry Yemen includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Astrazeneca Patients facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Strategy and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Astrazeneca Patients, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Astrazeneca Patients 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 AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Astrazeneca Patients
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field.
4. Making a Innovation & Entrepreneurship topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Astrazeneca Patients
Strengths AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Astrazeneca Patients in AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Astrazeneca Patients 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 AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Astrazeneca Patients
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Astrazeneca Patients does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Astrazeneca Patients in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Astrazeneca Patients has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Astrazeneca Patients to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Astrazeneca Patients 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 Astrazeneca Patients in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Astrazeneca Patients 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 AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– Astrazeneca Patients is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Astrazeneca Patients is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Astrazeneca Patients 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.
Analytics focus
– Astrazeneca Patients is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Scott Snell, Gerry Yemen can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Astrazeneca Patients in the sector have low bargaining power. AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Astrazeneca Patients to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Astrazeneca Patients is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Astrazeneca Patients has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Astrazeneca Patients 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Astrazeneca Patients 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients 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 AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Astrazeneca Patients is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Astrazeneca Patients 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. Astrazeneca Patients 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Astrazeneca Patients 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients 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 Astrazeneca Patients has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Scott Snell, Gerry Yemen suggests that, Astrazeneca Patients 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients HBR case study mentions - Astrazeneca Patients takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients, it seems that the employees of Astrazeneca Patients 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.
Opportunities AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients | 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 AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Astrazeneca Patients can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Astrazeneca Patients can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Astrazeneca Patients is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Astrazeneca Patients 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Astrazeneca Patients 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, AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Astrazeneca Patients 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 AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Astrazeneca Patients to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Astrazeneca Patients 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 Astrazeneca Patients to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Astrazeneca Patients to increase its market reach. Astrazeneca Patients 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Astrazeneca Patients can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Astrazeneca Patients in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– Astrazeneca Patients can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Astrazeneca Patients has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Astrazeneca Patients to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients case study. Astrazeneca Patients can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Astrazeneca Patients 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 AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Astrazeneca Patients 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.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Astrazeneca Patients 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.
Increasing wage structure of Astrazeneca Patients
– 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 Astrazeneca Patients.
Regulatory challenges
– Astrazeneca Patients 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry regulations.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients, Astrazeneca Patients may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Innovation & Entrepreneurship .
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 Astrazeneca Patients.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Astrazeneca Patients has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Astrazeneca Patients needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Astrazeneca Patients 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 AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients .
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.
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 Astrazeneca Patients business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Astrazeneca Patients in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Astrazeneca Patients with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients 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 AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients 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 AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients 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 AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients 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 AstraZeneca: Transforming How New Medicines Flow to Patients 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 Astrazeneca Patients needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
