SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Beximco Pharma (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Beximco Pharma is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization,
increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Beximco Pharma can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Beximco Pharma, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Beximco Pharma 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 Beximco Pharma can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Beximco Pharma
2. Improving business portfolio management of Beximco Pharma
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Beximco Pharma
Strengths of Beximco Pharma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Beximco Pharma are -
Learning organization
- Beximco Pharma 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 Beximco Pharma is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Beximco Pharma emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Beximco Pharma in the sector have low bargaining power. Beximco Pharma has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Beximco Pharma to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Beximco Pharma has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Beximco Pharma to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Beximco Pharma has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Beximco Pharma have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Beximco Pharma
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Beximco Pharma does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Beximco Pharma 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.
Ability to lead change in
– Beximco Pharma is one of the leading players in the industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Beximco Pharma in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– Beximco Pharma 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 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.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Beximco Pharma digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Beximco Pharma 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Beximco Pharma in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Beximco Pharma comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Beximco Pharma is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Beximco Pharma 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.
Weaknesses of Beximco Pharma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Beximco Pharma are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Beximco Pharma has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Beximco Pharma 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Beximco Pharma, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Beximco Pharma has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Beximco Pharma 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Beximco Pharma has high operating costs in the industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Beximco Pharma lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Beximco Pharma has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Beximco Pharma has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Beximco Pharma should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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 Beximco Pharma supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Beximco Pharma is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Beximco Pharma vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Beximco Pharma is just above the industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Beximco Pharma needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Beximco Pharma can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Beximco Pharma is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Beximco Pharma 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Beximco Pharma, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact 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.
Beximco Pharma Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Beximco Pharma are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Beximco Pharma has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Beximco Pharma to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Beximco Pharma to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Beximco Pharma 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Beximco Pharma 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 industry.
Loyalty marketing
– Beximco Pharma 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Beximco Pharma in the industry. Now Beximco Pharma can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Beximco Pharma 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 Beximco Pharma to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Beximco Pharma can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Beximco Pharma in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Beximco Pharma 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Beximco Pharma can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Beximco Pharma operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
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 Beximco Pharma 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Beximco Pharma can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Beximco Pharma has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Beximco Pharma to build a more holistic ecosystem for Beximco Pharma products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Beximco Pharma External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Beximco Pharma are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Beximco Pharma 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 Beximco Pharma prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Beximco Pharma may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
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 Beximco Pharma in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Beximco Pharma business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Beximco Pharma 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. Beximco Pharma can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Beximco Pharma with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Beximco Pharma high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Beximco Pharma.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Beximco Pharma has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Beximco Pharma needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Beximco Pharma 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 industry and other sectors.
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. Beximco Pharma needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Beximco Pharma in industry. The 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Beximco Pharma 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 industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Beximco Pharma Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Beximco Pharma 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 Beximco Pharma 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 Beximco Pharma 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 Beximco Pharma 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 Beximco Pharma needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
