Arno Therapeutics (ARNI) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Arno Therapeutics (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Arno Therapeutics is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc

---

---

---

---

Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Arno Therapeutics

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Arno Therapeutics can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Arno Therapeutics, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Arno Therapeutics 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 Arno Therapeutics can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Arno Therapeutics
2. Improving business portfolio management of Arno Therapeutics
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 Arno Therapeutics

---

Strengths of Arno Therapeutics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Arno Therapeutics are -

Analytics focus

– Arno Therapeutics 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.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Arno Therapeutics 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.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Arno Therapeutics in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Arno Therapeutics has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Arno Therapeutics to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Training and development

– Arno Therapeutics has one of the best training and development program in Healthcare industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.

Strong track record of project management in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry

– Arno Therapeutics 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

– Arno Therapeutics is one of the most innovative firm in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Biotechnology & Drugs industry

– Arno Therapeutics has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Arno Therapeutics to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Arno Therapeutics to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Learning organization

- Arno Therapeutics 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 Arno Therapeutics is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Arno Therapeutics emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

High brand equity

– Arno Therapeutics has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Arno Therapeutics to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Arno Therapeutics 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 Arno Therapeutics have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Arno Therapeutics 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.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Arno Therapeutics 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.

---

---

Weaknesses of Arno Therapeutics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Arno Therapeutics are -

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Arno Therapeutics has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry over the last five years. Arno Therapeutics 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of United States, Arno Therapeutics needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Need for greater diversity

– Arno Therapeutics 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Arno Therapeutics 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.

High dependence on Arno Therapeutics ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Arno Therapeutics 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 Arno Therapeutics has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Arno Therapeutics 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Arno Therapeutics 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 Arno Therapeutics can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Arno Therapeutics is planning to shift buying processes online.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Arno Therapeutics is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, but Arno Therapeutics needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Arno Therapeutics to focus more on services in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Arno Therapeutics 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of Arno Therapeutics products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Arno Therapeutics needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Arno Therapeutics 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry using digital technology.

---

Arno Therapeutics Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Arno Therapeutics are -

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. Arno Therapeutics can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Arno Therapeutics 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Arno Therapeutics 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.

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. Arno Therapeutics can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Arno Therapeutics is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Arno Therapeutics can utilize new technology in the field of Biotechnology & Drugs industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Arno Therapeutics 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 Arno Therapeutics to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Arno Therapeutics to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

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 Arno Therapeutics 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Arno Therapeutics 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 Arno Therapeutics to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Arno Therapeutics 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 Arno Therapeutics to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Manufacturing automation

– Arno Therapeutics can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Biotechnology & Drugs 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Arno Therapeutics 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Arno Therapeutics can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Arno Therapeutics in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

---

Threats Arno Therapeutics External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Arno Therapeutics are -

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Arno Therapeutics 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.

Increasing wage structure of Arno Therapeutics

– 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 Arno Therapeutics.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Arno Therapeutics 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.

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

– Arno Therapeutics has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Arno Therapeutics 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.

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 Arno Therapeutics in the Biotechnology & Drugs sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Arno Therapeutics can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry.

Environmental challenges

– Arno Therapeutics 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. Arno Therapeutics can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Arno Therapeutics 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.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Biotechnology & Drugs industry are lowering. It can presents Arno Therapeutics with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Biotechnology & Drugs sector.

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 Arno Therapeutics business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

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. Arno Therapeutics 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, Arno Therapeutics 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.

---

Weighted SWOT Analysis of Arno Therapeutics Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Arno Therapeutics 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 Arno Therapeutics 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 Arno Therapeutics 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 Arno Therapeutics 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 Arno Therapeutics needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

--- ---