Achieve Life Sciences (ACHV) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Biotechnology & Drugs
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Achieve Life Sciences (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Achieve Life Sciences is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Achieve Life Sciences
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Achieve Life Sciences can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Achieve Life Sciences, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Achieve 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 Achieve Life Sciences can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Achieve Life Sciences
2. Improving business portfolio management of Achieve Life Sciences
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Biotechnology & Drugs sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Achieve Life Sciences
Strengths of Achieve Life Sciences | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Achieve Life Sciences are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Achieve 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Achieve Life Sciences have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Achieve Life Sciences has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Achieve Life Sciences to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Achieve Life Sciences to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Achieve Life Sciences is one of the leading players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Achieve Life Sciences comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Ability to lead change in Biotechnology & Drugs
– Achieve Life Sciences is one of the leading players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Achieve Life Sciences in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Achieve Life Sciences in Biotechnology & Drugs industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Achieve Life Sciences
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Achieve Life Sciences does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Achieve Life Sciences has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Achieve Life Sciences 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Achieve Life Sciences is present in almost all the verticals within the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This has provided Achieve Life Sciences 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Achieve 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.
Digital Transformation in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Achieve Life Sciences digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Achieve Life Sciences 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 Achieve Life Sciences in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Achieve Life Sciences has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Achieve Life Sciences to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Achieve Life Sciences | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Achieve Life Sciences are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Achieve Life Sciences is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, but Achieve Life Sciences needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Achieve Life Sciences to focus more on services in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Achieve Life Sciences 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Achieve Life Sciences needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Achieve 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Achieve Life Sciences 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, Achieve 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Achieve Life Sciences, in the dynamic environment of Biotechnology & Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Achieve Life Sciences has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
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 Achieve Life Sciences supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Achieve Life Sciences is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Achieve Life Sciences vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Achieve Life Sciences 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Achieve Life Sciences strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Achieve 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Achieve Life Sciences has some of the most successful models in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Achieve Life Sciences should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Achieve Life Sciences Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Achieve Life Sciences are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Achieve Life Sciences has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This can help Achieve Life Sciences to build a more holistic ecosystem for Achieve Life Sciences products in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Achieve Life Sciences 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. Achieve Life Sciences 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Achieve 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 Achieve 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Achieve 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Biotechnology & Drugs industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Achieve 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.
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 Achieve 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
– Achieve 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Achieve Life Sciences 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Achieve Life Sciences 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Achieve Life Sciences 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 Achieve Life Sciences to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Achieve Life Sciences to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Achieve Life Sciences in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Now Achieve Life Sciences can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Achieve Life Sciences to increase its market reach. Achieve Life Sciences 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Achieve 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.
Threats Achieve Life Sciences External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Achieve Life Sciences are -
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Achieve Life Sciences 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Achieve Life Sciences is facing in Biotechnology & Drugs sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Biotechnology & Drugs industry are lowering. It can presents Achieve Life Sciences with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Achieve Life Sciences 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.
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. Achieve 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Achieve 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 Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Increasing wage structure of Achieve 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 Achieve Life Sciences.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Achieve 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 Achieve Life Sciences prominent markets.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Achieve Life Sciences has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Achieve Life Sciences needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Biotechnology & Drugs 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Achieve 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry regulations.
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 Achieve Life Sciences business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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. Achieve Life Sciences needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Achieve Life Sciences Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Achieve 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 Achieve 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 Achieve 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 Achieve 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 Achieve Life Sciences needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.