SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for OliX Pharmaceuticals (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , OliX Pharmaceuticals is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, 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, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing commodity prices,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of OliX Pharmaceuticals
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that OliX Pharmaceuticals can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the OliX Pharmaceuticals, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which OliX Pharmaceuticals 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 OliX Pharmaceuticals can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of OliX Pharmaceuticals
2. Improving business portfolio management of OliX Pharmaceuticals
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Biotechnology & Drugs sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of OliX Pharmaceuticals
Strengths of OliX Pharmaceuticals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of OliX Pharmaceuticals are -
Training and development
– OliX Pharmaceuticals 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– OliX Pharmaceuticals has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of OliX Pharmaceuticals have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– OliX Pharmaceuticals 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 South Korea 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– OliX Pharmaceuticals has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – OliX Pharmaceuticals 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.
Ability to lead change in Biotechnology & Drugs
– OliX Pharmaceuticals is one of the leading players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in South Korea. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in South Korea but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled OliX Pharmaceuticals in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– OliX Pharmaceuticals is present in almost all the verticals within the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This has provided OliX Pharmaceuticals 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– OliX Pharmaceuticals is one of the leading players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in South Korea. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in South Korea. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High brand equity
– OliX Pharmaceuticals has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled OliX Pharmaceuticals to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of OliX Pharmaceuticals
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing OliX Pharmaceuticals does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of OliX Pharmaceuticals in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. OliX Pharmaceuticals has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps OliX Pharmaceuticals to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– OliX Pharmaceuticals has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled OliX Pharmaceuticals to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The sustainable margins have also helped OliX Pharmaceuticals to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of OliX Pharmaceuticals in Biotechnology & Drugs industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of OliX Pharmaceuticals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of OliX Pharmaceuticals are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, OliX Pharmaceuticals is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help OliX Pharmaceuticals to provide better information regarding Biotechnology & Drugs products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of OliX Pharmaceuticals is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, but OliX Pharmaceuticals needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help OliX Pharmaceuticals to focus more on services in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of OliX Pharmaceuticals strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of OliX Pharmaceuticals 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
OliX Pharmaceuticals 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.
High dependence on OliX Pharmaceuticals ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of OliX Pharmaceuticals 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 OliX Pharmaceuticals has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at OliX Pharmaceuticals 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that OliX Pharmaceuticals needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at OliX Pharmaceuticals can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as OliX Pharmaceuticals is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of OliX Pharmaceuticals products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, OliX Pharmaceuticals needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– OliX Pharmaceuticals has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, OliX Pharmaceuticals 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. OliX Pharmaceuticals 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, OliX Pharmaceuticals 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.
OliX Pharmaceuticals Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of OliX Pharmaceuticals are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for OliX Pharmaceuticals 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.
Manufacturing automation
– OliX Pharmaceuticals 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.
Loyalty marketing
– OliX Pharmaceuticals 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for OliX Pharmaceuticals 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– OliX Pharmaceuticals can develop new processes and procedures in Biotechnology & Drugs 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– OliX Pharmaceuticals 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.
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 OliX Pharmaceuticals in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Now OliX Pharmaceuticals 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. OliX Pharmaceuticals can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. OliX Pharmaceuticals 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. OliX Pharmaceuticals 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects OliX Pharmaceuticals can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– OliX Pharmaceuticals 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 OliX Pharmaceuticals to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help OliX Pharmaceuticals to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, OliX Pharmaceuticals is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. OliX Pharmaceuticals 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.
Buying journey improvements
– OliX Pharmaceuticals can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Biotechnology & 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.
Threats OliX Pharmaceuticals External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of OliX Pharmaceuticals are -
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.
Increasing wage structure of OliX Pharmaceuticals
– 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 OliX Pharmaceuticals.
Regulatory challenges
– OliX Pharmaceuticals 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for OliX Pharmaceuticals 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Biotechnology & Drugs industry are lowering. It can presents OliX Pharmaceuticals with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that OliX Pharmaceuticals is facing in Biotechnology & Drugs 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. OliX Pharmaceuticals needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, OliX Pharmaceuticals 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 OliX Pharmaceuticals 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– OliX Pharmaceuticals 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 OliX Pharmaceuticals.
Environmental challenges
– OliX Pharmaceuticals 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. OliX Pharmaceuticals 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 OliX Pharmaceuticals business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of OliX Pharmaceuticals Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at OliX Pharmaceuticals 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 OliX Pharmaceuticals 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 OliX Pharmaceuticals 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 OliX Pharmaceuticals 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 OliX Pharmaceuticals needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
