Rhone Ma (RHON) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Rhone Ma (Malaysia)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Rhone Ma is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Rhone Ma

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Rhone Ma can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Rhone Ma, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Rhone Ma 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Rhone Ma can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Rhone Ma
2. Improving business portfolio management of Rhone Ma
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Malaysia
4. Making a Major Drugs sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Rhone Ma

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Strengths of Rhone Ma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Rhone Ma are -

Successful track record of launching new products

– Rhone Ma has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Rhone Ma 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

– Rhone Ma is one of the leading players in the Major Drugs industry in Malaysia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Malaysia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Rhone Ma comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Major 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.

Innovation driven organization

– Rhone Ma is one of the most innovative firm in Major Drugs sector.

Organizational Resilience of Rhone Ma

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Rhone Ma does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Diverse revenue streams

– Rhone Ma is present in almost all the verticals within the Major Drugs industry. This has provided Rhone Ma 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.

High brand equity

– Rhone Ma has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Rhone Ma to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Learning organization

- Rhone Ma 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 Rhone Ma is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Rhone Ma emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Rhone Ma 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Rhone Ma has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Major Drugs industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Rhone Ma have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Major Drugs industry

– Rhone Ma has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Rhone Ma to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Major Drugs industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Rhone Ma to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Rhone Ma in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Rhone Ma has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Rhone Ma to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

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Weaknesses of Rhone Ma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Rhone Ma are -

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Malaysia, Rhone Ma needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Rhone Ma, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Major 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.

High dependence on Rhone Ma ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Rhone Ma still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Major Drugs industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Rhone Ma has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Rhone Ma, in the dynamic environment of Major Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Rhone Ma has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Rhone Ma has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Major Drugs industry using digital technology.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Rhone Ma has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Major Drugs industry over the last five years. Rhone Ma 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.

Employees’ less understanding of Rhone Ma strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Rhone Ma 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of Rhone Ma products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Rhone Ma needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Rhone Ma has some of the most successful models in the Major Drugs industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Rhone Ma should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Rhone Ma 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.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Rhone Ma is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Major Drugs industry, but Rhone Ma needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Rhone Ma to focus more on services in the Major Drugs industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

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Rhone Ma Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Rhone Ma are -

Leveraging digital technologies

– Rhone Ma 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Rhone Ma has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Major Drugs industry. This can help Rhone Ma to build a more holistic ecosystem for Rhone Ma products in the Major Drugs industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

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 Rhone Ma 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Rhone Ma 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 Major Drugs industry.

Loyalty marketing

– Rhone Ma 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Rhone Ma can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Rhone Ma operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Major Drugs sector.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Rhone Ma can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

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. Rhone Ma can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Major Drugs industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Rhone Ma in the Major Drugs industry. Now Rhone Ma can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Rhone Ma 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

– Rhone Ma can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Major 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.

Manufacturing automation

– Rhone Ma can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Major 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Rhone Ma 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 Rhone Ma to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

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Threats Rhone Ma External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Rhone Ma are -

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Rhone Ma 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 Major Drugs industry.

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. Rhone Ma 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 Major Drugs industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Rhone Ma can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Major Drugs industry are lowering. It can presents Rhone Ma with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Major Drugs sector.

Environmental challenges

– Rhone Ma 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. Rhone Ma can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Major Drugs industry.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Rhone Ma in Major Drugs industry. The Major 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.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Rhone Ma 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.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Rhone Ma may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Major Drugs sector.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Rhone Ma 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 Major Drugs industry and other sectors.

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 Rhone Ma business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Increasing wage structure of Rhone Ma

– 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 Rhone Ma.

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. Rhone Ma needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Major Drugs industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

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 Rhone Ma in the Major Drugs sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Rhone Ma Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Rhone Ma 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 Rhone Ma 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 Rhone Ma 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 Rhone Ma 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 Rhone Ma needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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