SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for SymBio Pharmaceuticals (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , SymBio Pharmaceuticals is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of SymBio Pharmaceuticals
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that SymBio Pharmaceuticals can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the SymBio Pharmaceuticals, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which SymBio Pharmaceuticals operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of SymBio Pharmaceuticals can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of SymBio Pharmaceuticals
2. Improving business portfolio management of SymBio Pharmaceuticals
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Biotechnology & Drugs sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of SymBio Pharmaceuticals
Strengths of SymBio Pharmaceuticals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of SymBio Pharmaceuticals are -
Training and development
– SymBio Pharmaceuticals 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.
Innovation driven organization
– SymBio Pharmaceuticals is one of the most innovative firm in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Learning organization
- SymBio Pharmaceuticals 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 SymBio Pharmaceuticals is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at SymBio Pharmaceuticals emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of SymBio Pharmaceuticals comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Biotechnology & 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– SymBio Pharmaceuticals has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – SymBio Pharmaceuticals staying ahead in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of SymBio Pharmaceuticals in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. SymBio Pharmaceuticals has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps SymBio Pharmaceuticals to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the SymBio Pharmaceuticals are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
High brand equity
– SymBio Pharmaceuticals has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled SymBio Pharmaceuticals to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– SymBio Pharmaceuticals is present in almost all the verticals within the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This has provided SymBio Pharmaceuticals 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
– SymBio Pharmaceuticals is one of the leading players in the Biotechnology & 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.
Analytics focus
– SymBio Pharmaceuticals 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The technology infrastructure of Japan is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Strong track record of project management in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– SymBio Pharmaceuticals is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of SymBio Pharmaceuticals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of SymBio Pharmaceuticals are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that SymBio Pharmaceuticals needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at SymBio Pharmaceuticals can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as SymBio Pharmaceuticals is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– SymBio Pharmaceuticals 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, SymBio Pharmaceuticals needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at SymBio Pharmaceuticals 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, SymBio Pharmaceuticals has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry over the last five years. SymBio Pharmaceuticals even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Lack of clear differentiation of SymBio Pharmaceuticals products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, SymBio Pharmaceuticals needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, SymBio Pharmaceuticals has high operating costs in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract SymBio Pharmaceuticals lucrative customers.
High dependence on SymBio Pharmaceuticals ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of SymBio Pharmaceuticals still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Biotechnology & Drugs industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though SymBio Pharmaceuticals has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of SymBio Pharmaceuticals, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Biotechnology & 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As SymBio Pharmaceuticals is one of the leading players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in last five years.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, SymBio Pharmaceuticals is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help SymBio Pharmaceuticals to provide better information regarding Biotechnology & Drugs products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
SymBio Pharmaceuticals Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of SymBio Pharmaceuticals are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, SymBio Pharmaceuticals 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 SymBio Pharmaceuticals to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for SymBio Pharmaceuticals in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Now SymBio Pharmaceuticals can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Developing new processes and practices
– SymBio Pharmaceuticals can develop new processes and procedures in Biotechnology & 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.
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. SymBio Pharmaceuticals can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, SymBio Pharmaceuticals can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that SymBio Pharmaceuticals operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. SymBio Pharmaceuticals can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. SymBio Pharmaceuticals can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
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 SymBio Pharmaceuticals 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of SymBio Pharmaceuticals has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This can help SymBio Pharmaceuticals to build a more holistic ecosystem for SymBio Pharmaceuticals products in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for SymBio Pharmaceuticals 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 SymBio Pharmaceuticals to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for SymBio Pharmaceuticals to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for SymBio Pharmaceuticals in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– SymBio Pharmaceuticals can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Biotechnology & 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.
Loyalty marketing
– SymBio Pharmaceuticals 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.
Threats SymBio Pharmaceuticals External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of SymBio Pharmaceuticals are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for SymBio Pharmaceuticals in Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The Biotechnology & 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 SymBio Pharmaceuticals business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that SymBio Pharmaceuticals is facing in Biotechnology & Drugs sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. SymBio Pharmaceuticals 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.
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 SymBio Pharmaceuticals in the Biotechnology & Drugs sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– SymBio Pharmaceuticals 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Biotechnology & Drugs industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. SymBio Pharmaceuticals can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, SymBio Pharmaceuticals can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate SymBio Pharmaceuticals prominent markets.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– SymBio Pharmaceuticals 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry regulations.
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
– SymBio Pharmaceuticals high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– SymBio Pharmaceuticals has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, SymBio Pharmaceuticals needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Biotechnology & 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of SymBio Pharmaceuticals Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at SymBio Pharmaceuticals needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of SymBio Pharmaceuticals is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of SymBio Pharmaceuticals is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of SymBio Pharmaceuticals 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 SymBio Pharmaceuticals needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.