SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sinil Pharmaceutical (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sinil Pharmaceutical is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Sinil Pharmaceutical
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Sinil Pharmaceutical can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sinil Pharmaceutical, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sinil Pharmaceutical 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 Sinil Pharmaceutical can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sinil Pharmaceutical
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sinil Pharmaceutical
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 Sinil Pharmaceutical
Strengths of Sinil Pharmaceutical | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sinil Pharmaceutical are -
Ability to lead change in Biotechnology & Drugs
– Sinil Pharmaceutical 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 Sinil Pharmaceutical in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sinil Pharmaceutical has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Sinil Pharmaceutical 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Sinil Pharmaceutical has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sinil Pharmaceutical to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sinil Pharmaceutical to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Sinil Pharmaceutical is one of the most innovative firm in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sinil Pharmaceutical has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sinil Pharmaceutical 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
– Sinil Pharmaceutical 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.
Organizational Resilience of Sinil Pharmaceutical
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Sinil Pharmaceutical does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Sinil Pharmaceutical 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Sinil Pharmaceutical in Biotechnology & Drugs industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sinil Pharmaceutical 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Sinil Pharmaceutical 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Sinil Pharmaceutical is present in almost all the verticals within the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This has provided Sinil Pharmaceutical 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.
Weaknesses of Sinil Pharmaceutical | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sinil Pharmaceutical are -
Employees’ less understanding of Sinil Pharmaceutical strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Sinil Pharmaceutical 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Sinil Pharmaceutical, 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Sinil Pharmaceutical 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 Sinil Pharmaceutical is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, but Sinil Pharmaceutical needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Sinil Pharmaceutical 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 Sinil Pharmaceutical, in the dynamic environment of Biotechnology & Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sinil Pharmaceutical has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, Sinil Pharmaceutical 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Sinil Pharmaceutical 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Sinil Pharmaceutical 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. Sinil Pharmaceutical 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Sinil Pharmaceutical 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.
Skills based hiring in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sinil Pharmaceutical 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in South Korea, Sinil Pharmaceutical 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
Sinil Pharmaceutical Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Sinil Pharmaceutical are -
Loyalty marketing
– Sinil Pharmaceutical 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sinil Pharmaceutical 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 Sinil Pharmaceutical to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Sinil Pharmaceutical 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sinil Pharmaceutical can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sinil Pharmaceutical operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Sinil Pharmaceutical to increase its market reach. Sinil Pharmaceutical 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Sinil Pharmaceutical 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.
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 Sinil Pharmaceutical 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sinil Pharmaceutical can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sinil Pharmaceutical 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
Buying journey improvements
– Sinil Pharmaceutical 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Sinil Pharmaceutical 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 Sinil Pharmaceutical to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sinil Pharmaceutical is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sinil Pharmaceutical 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sinil Pharmaceutical 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 Sinil Pharmaceutical to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sinil Pharmaceutical to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Sinil Pharmaceutical External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Sinil Pharmaceutical are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sinil Pharmaceutical is facing in Biotechnology & Drugs sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sinil Pharmaceutical 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Sinil Pharmaceutical 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Sinil Pharmaceutical may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
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 Sinil Pharmaceutical.
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. Sinil Pharmaceutical 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.
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 Sinil Pharmaceutical in the Biotechnology & Drugs sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sinil Pharmaceutical 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 Sinil Pharmaceutical 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Sinil Pharmaceutical 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 Sinil Pharmaceutical prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Sinil Pharmaceutical
– 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 Sinil Pharmaceutical.
Environmental challenges
– Sinil Pharmaceutical 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. Sinil Pharmaceutical can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sinil Pharmaceutical Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Sinil Pharmaceutical 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 Sinil Pharmaceutical 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 Sinil Pharmaceutical 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 Sinil Pharmaceutical 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 Sinil Pharmaceutical needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.