Life Science Tech (285770) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Software & Programming
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Life Science Tech (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Life Science Tech is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions,
increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Life Science Tech
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Life Science Tech can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Life Science Tech, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Life Science Tech 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 Life Science Tech can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Life Science Tech
2. Improving business portfolio management of Life Science Tech
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Software & Programming sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Life Science Tech
Strengths of Life Science Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Life Science Tech are -
Strong track record of project management in the Software & Programming industry
– Life Science Tech is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- Life Science Tech 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 Life Science Tech is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Life Science Tech emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Software & Programming industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Life Science Tech digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Life Science Tech 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Life Science Tech in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Life Science Tech has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Life Science Tech to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Life Science Tech 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Life Science Tech is one of the leading players in the Software & Programming 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Life Science Tech 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Software & Programming industry
– Life Science Tech has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Life Science Tech to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Software & Programming industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Life Science Tech to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Life Science Tech has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Life Science Tech to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Life Science Tech has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Software & Programming industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Life Science Tech have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Life Science Tech is present in almost all the verticals within the Software & Programming industry. This has provided Life Science Tech 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.
Organizational Resilience of Life Science Tech
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Life Science Tech does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of Life Science Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Life Science Tech are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Life Science Tech is one of the leading players in the Software & Programming industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Software & Programming industry in last five years.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Life Science Tech is just above the Software & Programming 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Life Science Tech needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Software & Programming industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Life Science Tech can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Life Science Tech is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Life Science Tech, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Software & Programming 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, Life Science Tech 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Life Science Tech has high operating costs in the Software & Programming industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Life Science Tech lucrative customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Software & Programming industry, Life Science Tech 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Life Science Tech strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Life Science Tech 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Life Science Tech has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Software & Programming industry over the last five years. Life Science Tech 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Life Science Tech 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 Software & Programming industry using digital technology.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Software & Programming industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in South Korea, Life Science Tech 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 Software & Programming industry.
Life Science Tech Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Life Science Tech are -
Loyalty marketing
– Life Science Tech 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.
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 Life Science Tech 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 Life Science Tech 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.
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. Life Science Tech 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 Software & Programming industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Life Science Tech 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. Life Science Tech 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Life Science Tech can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Software & Programming 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Life Science Tech 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Life Science Tech can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Software & Programming 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Life Science Tech has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Software & Programming sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Life Science Tech to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Life Science Tech to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Life Science Tech 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 Life Science Tech to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Life Science Tech 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 Life Science Tech to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Life Science Tech 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Life Science Tech is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Life Science Tech can utilize new technology in the field of Software & Programming industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats Life Science Tech External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Life Science Tech are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Software & Programming industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Life Science Tech can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Life Science Tech business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Life Science Tech 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 Life Science Tech prominent markets.
Regulatory challenges
– Life Science Tech 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 Software & Programming industry regulations.
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 Life Science Tech.
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
– Life Science Tech has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Software & Programming industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Life Science Tech needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Software & Programming 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Life Science Tech 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 Software & Programming industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Life Science Tech in Software & Programming industry. The Software & Programming 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Life Science Tech may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Software & Programming sector.
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 Life Science Tech in the Software & Programming sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Life Science Tech 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 wage structure of Life Science Tech
– 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 Life Science Tech.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Life Science Tech Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Life Science Tech 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 Life Science Tech 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 Life Science Tech 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 Life Science Tech 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 Life Science Tech needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.