SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Kobayashi Pharmaceutical (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Kobayashi Pharmaceutical is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Kobayashi Pharmaceutical can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Kobayashi Pharmaceutical, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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 Kobayashi Pharmaceutical can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical
2. Improving business portfolio management of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Major Drugs sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical
Strengths of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical are -
Training and development
– Kobayashi Pharmaceutical has one of the best training and development program in Healthcare industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Major Drugs industry
– Kobayashi Pharmaceutical has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Kobayashi Pharmaceutical to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Major Drugs industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Kobayashi Pharmaceutical to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Major Drugs industry
– Kobayashi Pharmaceutical is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Kobayashi Pharmaceutical has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Kobayashi Pharmaceutical to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Major Drugs
– Kobayashi Pharmaceutical is one of the leading players in the Major Drugs industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Major Drugs industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Kobayashi Pharmaceutical in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Kobayashi Pharmaceutical is present in almost all the verticals within the Major Drugs industry. This has provided Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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
– Kobayashi Pharmaceutical is one of the leading players in the Major Drugs industry in Japan. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Japan. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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 Kobayashi Pharmaceutical have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Kobayashi Pharmaceutical has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Kobayashi Pharmaceutical to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Kobayashi Pharmaceutical has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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 of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical are -
Employees’ less understanding of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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 Kobayashi Pharmaceutical, 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Major Drugs industry, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Major Drugs industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Major Drugs industry over the last five years. Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Kobayashi Pharmaceutical needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Major Drugs industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Kobayashi Pharmaceutical can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Kobayashi Pharmaceutical is planning to shift buying processes online.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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 Major Drugs industry using digital technology.
Lack of clear differentiation of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Kobayashi Pharmaceutical, in the dynamic environment of Major Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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 Japan, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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.
Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Kobayashi Pharmaceutical operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Major Drugs sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
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. Kobayashi Pharmaceutical can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Kobayashi Pharmaceutical to increase its market reach. Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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 Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Kobayashi Pharmaceutical has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Major Drugs sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Kobayashi Pharmaceutical to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Kobayashi Pharmaceutical to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Major Drugs industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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. Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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.
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. Kobayashi Pharmaceutical can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Major Drugs industry. This can help Kobayashi Pharmaceutical to build a more holistic ecosystem for Kobayashi Pharmaceutical products in the Major Drugs industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Kobayashi Pharmaceutical can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Kobayashi Pharmaceutical External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Kobayashi Pharmaceutical has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Major Drugs industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Major Drugs 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Kobayashi Pharmaceutical is facing in Major Drugs sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Kobayashi Pharmaceutical will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
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. Kobayashi Pharmaceutical can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Kobayashi Pharmaceutical.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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 Kobayashi Pharmaceutical prominent markets.
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. Kobayashi Pharmaceutical needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Major Drugs industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Kobayashi Pharmaceutical in the Major Drugs sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Major Drugs industry are lowering. It can presents Kobayashi Pharmaceutical with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Major Drugs sector.
Environmental challenges
– Kobayashi Pharmaceutical needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Kobayashi Pharmaceutical can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Major Drugs industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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 Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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 Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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 Kobayashi Pharmaceutical 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 Kobayashi Pharmaceutical needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
