SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Brooks Laboratories Ltd (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Brooks Laboratories Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, there is backlash against globalization,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Brooks Laboratories Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Brooks Laboratories Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Brooks Laboratories Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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 Brooks Laboratories Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Brooks Laboratories Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Brooks Laboratories Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Major Drugs sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Brooks Laboratories Ltd
Strengths of Brooks Laboratories Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Brooks Laboratories Ltd are -
High brand equity
– Brooks Laboratories Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Brooks Laboratories Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Brooks Laboratories Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Major Drugs 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.
Learning organization
- Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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 Brooks Laboratories Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Brooks Laboratories Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Brooks Laboratories Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Brooks Laboratories Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Major Drugs industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Brooks Laboratories Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Major Drugs industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Brooks Laboratories Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Brooks Laboratories Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Major Drugs industry. This has provided Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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
– Brooks Laboratories Ltd is one of the leading players in the Major Drugs industry in India. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in India. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Brooks Laboratories Ltd in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Brooks Laboratories Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Brooks Laboratories Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Brooks Laboratories Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Major Drugs sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Brooks Laboratories Ltd in Major Drugs industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Brooks Laboratories Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Brooks Laboratories Ltd are -
Skills based hiring in Major Drugs industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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.
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 Brooks Laboratories Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Brooks Laboratories Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Brooks Laboratories Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Major Drugs industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in India, Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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 Major Drugs industry.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Brooks Laboratories Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Major Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Brooks Laboratories Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Brooks Laboratories Ltd is just above the Major Drugs industry average. It 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Brooks Laboratories Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Major Drugs industry, but Brooks Laboratories Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Brooks Laboratories Ltd to focus more on services in the Major Drugs industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of Brooks Laboratories Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Brooks Laboratories Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Major Drugs industry. 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Brooks Laboratories Ltd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Major Drugs industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Lack of clear differentiation of Brooks Laboratories Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Brooks Laboratories Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Brooks Laboratories Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Brooks Laboratories Ltd are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Major Drugs industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Brooks Laboratories Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Buying journey improvements
– Brooks Laboratories Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Major Drugs industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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 Brooks Laboratories Ltd to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Brooks Laboratories Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Brooks Laboratories Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Major Drugs industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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 Major Drugs industry.
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. Brooks Laboratories Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Brooks Laboratories Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Developing new processes and practices
– Brooks Laboratories Ltd can develop new processes and procedures in Major Drugs 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Brooks Laboratories Ltd to increase its market reach. Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Major Drugs industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Brooks Laboratories Ltd in the Major Drugs industry. Now Brooks Laboratories Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Brooks Laboratories Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Brooks Laboratories Ltd are -
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 Brooks Laboratories Ltd in the Major Drugs sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Brooks Laboratories Ltd in Major Drugs industry. The Major Drugs 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.
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 Brooks Laboratories Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Major Drugs industry are lowering. It can presents Brooks Laboratories Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Major Drugs sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Brooks Laboratories Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Major Drugs sector.
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. Brooks Laboratories Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Major Drugs industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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 Brooks Laboratories Ltd prominent markets.
Regulatory challenges
– Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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 Major Drugs industry regulations.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Major Drugs industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Brooks Laboratories Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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 Major Drugs industry and other sectors.
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
– Brooks Laboratories Ltd high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Brooks Laboratories Ltd.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Brooks Laboratories Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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 Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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 Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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 Brooks Laboratories Ltd 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 Brooks Laboratories Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.