SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Concert Pharm (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Concert Pharm is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Concert Pharm can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Concert Pharm, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Concert Pharm 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 Concert Pharm can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Concert Pharm
2. Improving business portfolio management of Concert Pharm
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 Concert Pharm
Strengths of Concert Pharm | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Concert Pharm are -
Innovation driven organization
– Concert Pharm is one of the most innovative firm in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Concert Pharm 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
– Concert Pharm 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.
Digital Transformation in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Concert Pharm digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Concert Pharm 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Concert Pharm is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Concert Pharm is present in almost all the verticals within the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This has provided Concert Pharm 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Concert Pharm has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Concert Pharm 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.
Learning organization
- Concert Pharm 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 Concert Pharm is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Concert Pharm emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Concert Pharm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Concert Pharm to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Concert Pharm to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Concert Pharm in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Concert Pharm has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Concert Pharm to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Concert Pharm 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 Concert Pharm have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Concert Pharm 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.
Weaknesses of Concert Pharm | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Concert Pharm are -
Employees’ less understanding of Concert Pharm strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Concert Pharm 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Concert Pharm needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Concert Pharm 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Concert Pharm 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 Concert Pharm can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Concert Pharm is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Concert Pharm 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Concert Pharm, in the dynamic environment of Biotechnology & Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Concert Pharm has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Concert Pharm 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.
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 Concert Pharm supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Concert Pharm is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Concert Pharm vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High dependence on Concert Pharm ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Concert Pharm 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 Concert Pharm has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Concert Pharm products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Concert Pharm needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, Concert Pharm 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.
Concert Pharm Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Concert Pharm are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Concert Pharm 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.
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. Concert Pharm can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Concert Pharm 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Concert Pharm 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Concert Pharm is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Concert Pharm 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Concert Pharm 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.
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. Concert Pharm can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Concert Pharm 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 Concert Pharm 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, Concert Pharm 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.
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 Concert Pharm 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, Concert Pharm 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 Concert Pharm to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Concert Pharm can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Concert Pharm operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
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 Concert Pharm in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Now Concert Pharm can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Concert Pharm External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Concert Pharm are -
Increasing wage structure of Concert Pharm
– 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 Concert Pharm.
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.
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. Concert Pharm needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Concert Pharm 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. Concert Pharm can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs 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 Concert Pharm in the Biotechnology & Drugs sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Concert Pharm 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.
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. Concert Pharm 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Concert Pharm can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Biotechnology & Drugs industry are lowering. It can presents Concert Pharm with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Concert Pharm 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Concert Pharm 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 Concert Pharm prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Concert Pharm 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.
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 Concert Pharm.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Concert Pharm Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Concert Pharm 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 Concert Pharm 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 Concert Pharm 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 Concert Pharm 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 Concert Pharm needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.