Plumbline Life Sciences (222670) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Plumbline Life Sciences (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Plumbline Life Sciences is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, increasing energy prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Plumbline Life Sciences
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Plumbline Life Sciences can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Plumbline Life Sciences, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Plumbline Life Sciences 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 Plumbline Life Sciences can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Plumbline Life Sciences
2. Improving business portfolio management of Plumbline Life Sciences
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Plumbline Life Sciences
Strengths of Plumbline Life Sciences | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Plumbline Life Sciences are -
Organizational Resilience of Plumbline Life Sciences
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Plumbline Life Sciences does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Plumbline Life Sciences has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Plumbline Life Sciences to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Plumbline Life Sciences in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Plumbline Life Sciences is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure of 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Plumbline Life Sciences has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Plumbline Life Sciences have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Plumbline Life Sciences has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Plumbline Life Sciences staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Plumbline Life Sciences is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Plumbline Life Sciences is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Plumbline Life Sciences 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.
Ability to lead change in
– Plumbline Life Sciences is one of the leading players in the industry in South Korea. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in South Korea but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Plumbline Life Sciences in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Training and development
– Plumbline Life Sciences has one of the best training and development program in 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Plumbline Life Sciences is one of the leading players in the 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.
Weaknesses of Plumbline Life Sciences | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Plumbline Life Sciences are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Plumbline Life Sciences has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Plumbline Life Sciences should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Plumbline Life Sciences 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of South Korea, Plumbline Life Sciences needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Plumbline Life Sciences is just above the 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.
High dependence on Plumbline Life Sciences ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Plumbline Life Sciences still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Plumbline Life Sciences has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Plumbline Life Sciences is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Plumbline Life Sciences needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Plumbline Life Sciences to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Plumbline Life Sciences 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Plumbline Life Sciences strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Plumbline Life Sciences 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Plumbline Life Sciences 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in South Korea, Plumbline Life Sciences is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Plumbline Life Sciences supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Plumbline Life Sciences is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Plumbline Life Sciences vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Plumbline Life Sciences Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Plumbline Life Sciences are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Plumbline Life Sciences has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Plumbline Life Sciences to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Plumbline Life Sciences to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– Plumbline Life Sciences can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Plumbline Life Sciences 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 Plumbline Life Sciences to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Plumbline Life Sciences 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Plumbline Life Sciences 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Plumbline Life Sciences can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the industry.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Plumbline Life Sciences can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Buying journey improvements
– Plumbline Life Sciences can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Plumbline Life Sciences is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Plumbline Life Sciences can utilize new technology in the field of industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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 Plumbline Life Sciences 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Plumbline Life Sciences 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Plumbline Life Sciences 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, Plumbline Life Sciences can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Plumbline Life Sciences operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Threats Plumbline Life Sciences External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Plumbline Life Sciences are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Plumbline Life Sciences is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Plumbline Life Sciences 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. Plumbline Life Sciences can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the 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. Plumbline Life Sciences 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 industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Plumbline Life Sciences can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Plumbline Life Sciences has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Plumbline Life Sciences needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Plumbline Life Sciences in industry. The 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Plumbline Life Sciences can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the industry.
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 Plumbline Life Sciences in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Plumbline Life Sciences needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of Plumbline Life Sciences
– 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 Plumbline Life Sciences.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Plumbline Life Sciences 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 Plumbline Life Sciences prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Plumbline Life Sciences may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Plumbline Life Sciences Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Plumbline Life Sciences 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 Plumbline Life Sciences 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 Plumbline Life Sciences 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 Plumbline Life Sciences 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 Plumbline Life Sciences needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.