SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Bioquell PLC (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Bioquell PLC is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Bioquell PLC can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Bioquell PLC, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Bioquell PLC 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 Bioquell PLC can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Bioquell PLC
2. Improving business portfolio management of Bioquell PLC
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Misc. Capital Goods sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Bioquell PLC
Strengths of Bioquell PLC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Bioquell PLC are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Bioquell PLC in Misc. Capital Goods industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Bioquell PLC has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Capital Goods industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Bioquell PLC have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Bioquell PLC 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Capital Goods industry
– Bioquell PLC is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Bioquell PLC
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Bioquell PLC does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Capital Goods industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Bioquell PLC digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Bioquell PLC 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.
Learning organization
- Bioquell PLC 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 Bioquell PLC is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Bioquell PLC emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Bioquell PLC comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Training and development
– Bioquell PLC has one of the best training and development program in Capital Goods 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Bioquell PLC in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Bioquell PLC has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Bioquell PLC to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Bioquell PLC has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Bioquell PLC has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Capital Goods industry
– Bioquell PLC has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Bioquell PLC to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Bioquell PLC to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Bioquell PLC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Bioquell PLC are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, Bioquell PLC 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.
High dependence on Bioquell PLC ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Bioquell PLC still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Capital Goods industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Bioquell PLC has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Bioquell PLC has high operating costs in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Bioquell PLC lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Bioquell PLC has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Bioquell PLC 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 Bioquell PLC supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Bioquell PLC is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Bioquell PLC vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Bioquell PLC has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Bioquell PLC needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Bioquell PLC, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Capital Goods industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Bioquell PLC has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Bioquell PLC is one of the leading players in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Capital Goods industry in last five years.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Bioquell PLC needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Capital Goods industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Bioquell PLC can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Bioquell PLC is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Capital Goods industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Bioquell PLC 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry.
Bioquell PLC Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Bioquell PLC are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Bioquell PLC 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 Bioquell PLC to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Bioquell PLC in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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 Bioquell PLC 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 Bioquell PLC 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Bioquell PLC can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Bioquell PLC is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Bioquell PLC can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Capital Goods industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Bioquell PLC 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Bioquell PLC 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. Bioquell PLC 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Bioquell PLC has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Capital Goods industry. This can help Bioquell PLC to build a more holistic ecosystem for Bioquell PLC products in the Misc. Capital Goods industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Bioquell PLC 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Bioquell PLC can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Capital Goods 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 Bioquell PLC to increase its market reach. Bioquell PLC 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Bioquell PLC 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry.
Threats Bioquell PLC External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Bioquell PLC are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Bioquell PLC is facing in Misc. Capital Goods sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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. Bioquell PLC needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Capital Goods industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Bioquell PLC 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry and other sectors.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Bioquell PLC has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Bioquell PLC needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Increasing wage structure of Bioquell PLC
– 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 Bioquell PLC.
Regulatory challenges
– Bioquell PLC 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry regulations.
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 Bioquell PLC in the Misc. Capital Goods sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Bioquell PLC 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Capital Goods industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Bioquell PLC can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Bioquell PLC 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 Bioquell PLC.
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 Bioquell PLC business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Bioquell PLC Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Bioquell PLC 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 Bioquell PLC 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 Bioquell PLC 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 Bioquell PLC 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 Bioquell PLC needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.