Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible!
Malaria causes over 1 million deaths per year, 90% of which are preventable. Drug resistance has become one of the most important barriers to effective treatment. The cheapest and most widely-used drugs are ineffective in most countries. Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) was founded in 1999 with the goal of developing new artemisinin combination therapies (ACT) to effectively treat the disease. A public-private-partnership, its mission is to discover, develop and deliver new treatments. With three new products in the final stages of development and a further 30 in the pipeline, MMV now faces challenges with the distribution of medicines whose development it has made possible.
Authors :: Orla Stapleton, Prashant Yadav, Luk Van Wassenhove
Swot Analysis of "Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible!" written by Orla Stapleton, Prashant Yadav, Luk Van Wassenhove includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Malaria Mmv facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Product development and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! casestudy better are - – wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible!
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Malaria Mmv, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Malaria Mmv 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 Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Malaria Mmv
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Malaria Mmv
Strengths Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Malaria Mmv in Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Malaria Mmv has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Malaria Mmv 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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Malaria Mmv 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 Malaria Mmv in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! 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.
Organizational Resilience of Malaria Mmv
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Malaria Mmv does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Malaria Mmv in the sector have low bargaining power. Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Malaria Mmv to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Malaria Mmv has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Malaria Mmv to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Malaria Mmv 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Malaria Mmv is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! 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.
Training and development
– Malaria Mmv has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Malaria Mmv is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Malaria Mmv is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Malaria Mmv 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.
Weaknesses Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! are -
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! 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 Malaria Mmv has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Malaria Mmv products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Malaria Mmv needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! 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 Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Malaria Mmv is planning to shift buying processes online.
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 Malaria Mmv supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible!, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Malaria Mmv vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Malaria Mmv 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Malaria Mmv 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, Malaria Mmv is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Malaria Mmv 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible!, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Leadership & Managing People 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Malaria Mmv 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 - Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! HBR case study mentions - Malaria Mmv 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.
Opportunities Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! | 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 Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Malaria Mmv 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 Leadership & Managing People segment.
Buying journey improvements
– Malaria Mmv can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Malaria Mmv 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 Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Malaria Mmv to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Malaria Mmv 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, Malaria Mmv is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Malaria Mmv 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Malaria Mmv can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Malaria Mmv operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Leadership & Managing People industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Malaria Mmv 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. Malaria Mmv 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Malaria Mmv can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People 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.
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 Malaria Mmv 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Malaria Mmv 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Malaria Mmv can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Malaria Mmv to increase its market reach. Malaria Mmv 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 Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Malaria Mmv 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 Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! .
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. Malaria Mmv needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Malaria Mmv is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Malaria Mmv 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 Leadership & Managing People industry regulations.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Malaria Mmv with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible!, Malaria Mmv may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Leadership & Managing People .
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Malaria Mmv can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Malaria Mmv
– 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 Malaria Mmv.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Malaria Mmv 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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Malaria Mmv 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Malaria Mmv 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! 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 Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! 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 Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! 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 Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! 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 Medicines for Malaria Venture: Accessing the Inaccessible! 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 Malaria Mmv needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
