Medivir B (0GP7) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Biotechnology & Drugs
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Medivir B (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Medivir B is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Medivir B can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Medivir B, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Medivir B 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 Medivir B can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Medivir B
2. Improving business portfolio management of Medivir B
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 Medivir B
Strengths of Medivir B | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Medivir B are -
High brand equity
– Medivir B has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Medivir B to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Medivir B 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.
Organizational Resilience of Medivir B
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Medivir B does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Biotechnology & Drugs
– Medivir B is one of the leading players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Medivir B in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Training and development
– Medivir B 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Medivir B 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 Medivir B have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Medivir B 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 Medivir B is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Medivir B emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Medivir B 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Medivir B has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Medivir B is present in almost all the verticals within the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This has provided Medivir B 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
– Medivir B has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Medivir B to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Medivir B to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Medivir B digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Medivir B 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.
Weaknesses of Medivir B | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Medivir B are -
Skills based hiring in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Medivir B 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Medivir B, in the dynamic environment of Biotechnology & Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Medivir B has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Medivir B 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. Medivir B 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 Medivir B products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Medivir B needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Medivir B has some of the most successful models in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Medivir B should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Medivir B, 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Medivir B is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, but Medivir B needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Medivir B to focus more on services in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Medivir B is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Medivir B to provide better information regarding Biotechnology & Drugs products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Medivir B 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
High dependence on Medivir B ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Medivir B 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 Medivir B has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Medivir B 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.
Medivir B Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Medivir B are -
Loyalty marketing
– Medivir B 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Medivir B 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.
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 Medivir B in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Now Medivir B can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Medivir B can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Medivir B operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
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. Medivir B can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Medivir B 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Medivir B can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Medivir B 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. Medivir B 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Medivir B 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 Medivir B to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Medivir B to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Medivir B 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Medivir B can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Biotechnology & Drugs sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Medivir B to increase its market reach. Medivir B 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Medivir B 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.
Threats Medivir B External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Medivir B are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Medivir B 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.
Increasing wage structure of Medivir B
– 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 Medivir B.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Biotechnology & Drugs industry are lowering. It can presents Medivir B with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
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 Medivir B business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Medivir B needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Medivir B 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Medivir B 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.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Medivir B 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 Medivir B prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Medivir B 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.
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 Medivir B in the Biotechnology & Drugs sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Medivir B has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Medivir B 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Medivir B 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Medivir B Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Medivir B 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 Medivir B 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 Medivir B 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 Medivir B 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 Medivir B needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.