SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Amgen Inc BDR (Brazil)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Amgen Inc BDR is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Amgen Inc BDR can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Amgen Inc BDR, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Amgen Inc BDR 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 Amgen Inc BDR can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Amgen Inc BDR
2. Improving business portfolio management of Amgen Inc BDR
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Brazil
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Amgen Inc BDR
Strengths of Amgen Inc BDR | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Amgen Inc BDR are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Amgen Inc BDR in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Amgen Inc BDR 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Amgen Inc BDR has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Amgen Inc BDR staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Amgen Inc BDR 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 Amgen Inc BDR is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Amgen Inc BDR emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Amgen Inc BDR has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Amgen Inc BDR 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Amgen Inc BDR is one of the leading players in the industry in Brazil. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Brazil. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Ability to lead change in
– Amgen Inc BDR is one of the leading players in the industry in Brazil. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in Brazil but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Amgen Inc BDR in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Amgen Inc BDR is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Amgen Inc BDR 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Amgen Inc BDR 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.
Analytics focus
– Amgen Inc BDR 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 Brazil 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Amgen Inc BDR is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Amgen Inc BDR is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Amgen Inc BDR | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Amgen Inc BDR are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Amgen Inc BDR 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. Amgen Inc BDR should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Amgen Inc BDR, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Amgen Inc BDR has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Amgen Inc BDR, 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Brazil, Amgen Inc BDR 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 industry.
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 Amgen Inc BDR supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Amgen Inc BDR is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Amgen Inc BDR vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Amgen Inc BDR products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Amgen Inc BDR needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ less understanding of Amgen Inc BDR strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Amgen Inc BDR don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Amgen Inc BDR is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Amgen Inc BDR 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. Amgen Inc BDR 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Brazil, Amgen Inc BDR needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Amgen Inc BDR 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 Amgen Inc BDR lucrative customers.
Amgen Inc BDR Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Amgen Inc BDR are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Amgen Inc BDR 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 Amgen Inc BDR to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Amgen Inc BDR to increase its market reach. Amgen Inc BDR 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Amgen Inc BDR 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 Amgen Inc BDR to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Amgen Inc BDR 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.
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 Amgen Inc BDR 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Amgen Inc BDR 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Amgen Inc BDR 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Amgen Inc BDR 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 Amgen Inc BDR to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Amgen Inc BDR to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Amgen Inc BDR can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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 Amgen Inc BDR in the industry. Now Amgen Inc BDR can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Amgen Inc BDR can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Manufacturing automation
– Amgen Inc BDR can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Amgen Inc BDR 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.
Threats Amgen Inc BDR External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Amgen Inc BDR are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Amgen Inc BDR has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Amgen Inc BDR 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.
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 Amgen Inc BDR business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Amgen Inc BDR 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.
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 Amgen Inc BDR in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Amgen Inc BDR 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 industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Amgen Inc BDR 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.
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. Amgen Inc BDR 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Amgen Inc BDR 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 Amgen Inc BDR prominent markets.
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 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.
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. Amgen Inc BDR needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Amgen Inc BDR can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Amgen Inc BDR 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. Amgen Inc BDR can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Amgen Inc BDR Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Amgen Inc BDR 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 Amgen Inc BDR 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 Amgen Inc BDR 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 Amgen Inc BDR 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 Amgen Inc BDR needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.