SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Evolva Holding (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Evolva Holding is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices,
geopolitical disruptions, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Evolva Holding can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Evolva Holding, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Evolva Holding 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 Evolva Holding can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Evolva Holding
2. Improving business portfolio management of Evolva Holding
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 Evolva Holding
Strengths of Evolva Holding | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Evolva Holding are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Evolva Holding 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.
Training and development
– Evolva Holding 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.
Analytics focus
– Evolva Holding 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 Evolva Holding in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Evolva Holding has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Evolva Holding to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Evolva Holding 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 Evolva Holding is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Evolva Holding emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Evolva Holding 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.
Ability to lead change in Biotechnology & Drugs
– Evolva Holding 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 Evolva Holding in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Evolva Holding is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Evolva Holding in Biotechnology & Drugs industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Evolva Holding is one of the most innovative firm in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Evolva Holding is one of the leading players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in United Kingdom. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United Kingdom. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Evolva Holding has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Evolva Holding 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.
Weaknesses of Evolva Holding | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Evolva Holding are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Evolva Holding 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. Evolva Holding 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Evolva Holding 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Evolva Holding needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Evolva Holding is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, but Evolva Holding needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Evolva Holding to focus more on services in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Evolva Holding, in the dynamic environment of Biotechnology & Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Evolva Holding has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Evolva Holding 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Evolva Holding products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Evolva Holding needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High dependence on Evolva Holding ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Evolva Holding 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 Evolva Holding has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Evolva Holding is just above the Biotechnology & Drugs 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Evolva Holding 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 Evolva Holding lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Evolva Holding, 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.
Evolva Holding Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Evolva Holding are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Evolva Holding 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Evolva Holding 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 Evolva Holding to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Evolva Holding 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Evolva Holding 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 Evolva Holding to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Evolva Holding to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Evolva Holding 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Evolva Holding 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.
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 Evolva Holding 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Evolva Holding 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Evolva Holding can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Evolva Holding 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Evolva Holding is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Evolva Holding can utilize new technology in the field of Biotechnology & Drugs industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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 Evolva Holding in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Now Evolva Holding can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Evolva Holding has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This can help Evolva Holding to build a more holistic ecosystem for Evolva Holding products in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Evolva Holding External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Evolva Holding are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Evolva Holding 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Evolva Holding 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.
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 Evolva Holding in the Biotechnology & Drugs sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Evolva Holding 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Evolva Holding 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.
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. Evolva Holding will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Biotechnology & Drugs industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Evolva Holding can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
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 Evolva Holding.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Biotechnology & Drugs industry are lowering. It can presents Evolva Holding with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Evolva Holding 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 Evolva Holding prominent markets.
Environmental challenges
– Evolva Holding 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. Evolva Holding can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
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 Evolva Holding business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Evolva Holding Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Evolva Holding 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 Evolva Holding 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 Evolva Holding 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 Evolva Holding 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 Evolva Holding needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.