Acorda (ACOR) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Biotechnology & Drugs
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Acorda (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Acorda is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Acorda can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Acorda, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Acorda 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 Acorda can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Acorda
2. Improving business portfolio management of Acorda
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 Acorda
Strengths of Acorda | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Acorda are -
Ability to lead change in Biotechnology & Drugs
– Acorda 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 Acorda in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Acorda 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 Acorda is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Acorda emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Acorda is one of the most innovative firm in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Acorda has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Acorda to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Acorda to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Acorda has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Acorda staying ahead in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Acorda 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Acorda in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Acorda has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Acorda to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Acorda has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Acorda to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Acorda is present in almost all the verticals within the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This has provided Acorda 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.
Analytics focus
– Acorda is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The technology infrastructure of United States 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.
Organizational Resilience of Acorda
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Acorda does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Acorda 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 Acorda have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Acorda | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Acorda are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, Acorda 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Acorda has high operating costs in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Acorda lucrative customers.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Acorda is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Acorda to provide better information regarding Biotechnology & Drugs products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Acorda needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Acorda can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Acorda is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Acorda, 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.
High dependence on Acorda ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Acorda still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Biotechnology & Drugs industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Acorda has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Acorda 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Acorda 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Acorda strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Acorda 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.
Skills based hiring in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Acorda 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Acorda is one of the leading players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in last five years.
Acorda Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Acorda are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Acorda 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 Acorda to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Acorda to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Acorda 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.
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. Acorda 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. Acorda 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.
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 Acorda 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Acorda 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 Acorda to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Acorda can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Acorda has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This can help Acorda to build a more holistic ecosystem for Acorda products in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Acorda in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Now Acorda can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Acorda 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, Acorda can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Acorda operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Acorda 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Acorda 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Acorda 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.
Threats Acorda External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Acorda are -
Environmental challenges
– Acorda 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. Acorda can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Biotechnology & Drugs industry are lowering. It can presents Acorda with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Acorda 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 Acorda 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 Acorda is facing in Biotechnology & Drugs sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Acorda 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 Acorda business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Acorda 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.
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. Acorda 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.
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. Acorda needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Acorda 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 Acorda prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Acorda 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Acorda Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Acorda 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 Acorda 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 Acorda 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 Acorda 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 Acorda needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.