SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Oasmia Pharmaceutical (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Oasmia Pharmaceutical is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Oasmia Pharmaceutical
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Oasmia Pharmaceutical can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Oasmia Pharmaceutical, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Oasmia 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 Oasmia Pharmaceutical can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Oasmia Pharmaceutical
2. Improving business portfolio management of Oasmia Pharmaceutical
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Biotechnology & Drugs sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Oasmia Pharmaceutical
Strengths of Oasmia Pharmaceutical | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Oasmia Pharmaceutical are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Oasmia Pharmaceutical is present in almost all the verticals within the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This has provided Oasmia 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Oasmia Pharmaceutical has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Oasmia Pharmaceutical to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Oasmia Pharmaceutical to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Oasmia 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Oasmia Pharmaceutical has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Oasmia Pharmaceutical 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Oasmia 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.
Training and development
– Oasmia 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.
Organizational Resilience of Oasmia Pharmaceutical
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Oasmia Pharmaceutical does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Oasmia Pharmaceutical is one of the most innovative firm in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Analytics focus
– Oasmia Pharmaceutical 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 United Kingdom 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Oasmia Pharmaceutical in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Oasmia Pharmaceutical has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Oasmia Pharmaceutical to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Oasmia Pharmaceutical 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Oasmia Pharmaceutical has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Oasmia Pharmaceutical have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Oasmia Pharmaceutical | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Oasmia Pharmaceutical are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Oasmia Pharmaceutical, in the dynamic environment of Biotechnology & Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Oasmia Pharmaceutical has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Oasmia Pharmaceutical 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 Oasmia Pharmaceutical can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Oasmia Pharmaceutical is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Oasmia Pharmaceutical 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 Oasmia Pharmaceutical lucrative customers.
Skills based hiring in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Oasmia Pharmaceutical 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Oasmia Pharmaceutical has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Biotechnology & 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Oasmia 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, Oasmia 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Oasmia Pharmaceutical products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Oasmia Pharmaceutical needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Oasmia 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry over the last five years. Oasmia 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.
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 Oasmia Pharmaceutical supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Oasmia Pharmaceutical is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Oasmia Pharmaceutical vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High dependence on Oasmia Pharmaceutical ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Oasmia Pharmaceutical 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 Oasmia Pharmaceutical has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Oasmia Pharmaceutical Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Oasmia Pharmaceutical are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Oasmia 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.
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. Oasmia 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. Oasmia 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Oasmia 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Oasmia Pharmaceutical 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Oasmia Pharmaceutical 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 Oasmia Pharmaceutical to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Oasmia Pharmaceutical 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 Oasmia Pharmaceutical to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Oasmia Pharmaceutical 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Oasmia Pharmaceutical has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This can help Oasmia Pharmaceutical to build a more holistic ecosystem for Oasmia Pharmaceutical products in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Biotechnology & Drugs industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Oasmia Pharmaceutical can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Oasmia Pharmaceutical has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Biotechnology & Drugs sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Oasmia Pharmaceutical to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Oasmia Pharmaceutical to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Oasmia Pharmaceutical 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Oasmia 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Oasmia 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.
Threats Oasmia Pharmaceutical External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Oasmia Pharmaceutical are -
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 Oasmia Pharmaceutical business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Oasmia Pharmaceutical 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Oasmia Pharmaceutical 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Oasmia Pharmaceutical may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Oasmia Pharmaceutical 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.
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. Oasmia 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.
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. Oasmia Pharmaceutical needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Oasmia 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, Oasmia 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 Oasmia Pharmaceutical prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Oasmia Pharmaceutical
– 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 Oasmia Pharmaceutical.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Biotechnology & Drugs industry are lowering. It can presents Oasmia Pharmaceutical with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Oasmia 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry and other sectors.
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 Oasmia Pharmaceutical.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Oasmia Pharmaceutical Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Oasmia 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 Oasmia 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 Oasmia 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 Oasmia 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 Oasmia Pharmaceutical needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
