SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Eton Pharmaceuticals (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Eton Pharmaceuticals is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Eton Pharmaceuticals
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Eton Pharmaceuticals can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Eton Pharmaceuticals, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Eton Pharmaceuticals 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 Eton Pharmaceuticals can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Eton Pharmaceuticals
2. Improving business portfolio management of Eton Pharmaceuticals
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 Eton Pharmaceuticals
Strengths of Eton Pharmaceuticals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Eton Pharmaceuticals are -
Organizational Resilience of Eton Pharmaceuticals
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Eton Pharmaceuticals does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Eton Pharmaceuticals 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Eton Pharmaceuticals has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Eton Pharmaceuticals to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Eton Pharmaceuticals to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Eton Pharmaceuticals has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Eton Pharmaceuticals to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Eton Pharmaceuticals in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Eton Pharmaceuticals has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Eton Pharmaceuticals to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Eton Pharmaceuticals is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Biotechnology & Drugs
– Eton Pharmaceuticals 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 Eton Pharmaceuticals in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Eton Pharmaceuticals is present in almost all the verticals within the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This has provided Eton Pharmaceuticals 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)
– Eton Pharmaceuticals has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Eton Pharmaceuticals 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
- Eton Pharmaceuticals 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 Eton Pharmaceuticals is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Eton Pharmaceuticals emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Eton Pharmaceuticals 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.
Analytics focus
– Eton Pharmaceuticals 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.
Weaknesses of Eton Pharmaceuticals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Eton Pharmaceuticals are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Eton Pharmaceuticals is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, but Eton Pharmaceuticals needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Eton Pharmaceuticals to focus more on services in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Eton Pharmaceuticals 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Eton Pharmaceuticals 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. Eton Pharmaceuticals should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Eton Pharmaceuticals is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Eton Pharmaceuticals to provide better information regarding Biotechnology & Drugs products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Eton Pharmaceuticals 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 Eton Pharmaceuticals, in the dynamic environment of Biotechnology & Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Eton Pharmaceuticals has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Eton Pharmaceuticals 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Eton Pharmaceuticals 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Eton Pharmaceuticals 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. Eton Pharmaceuticals 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.
High dependence on Eton Pharmaceuticals ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Eton Pharmaceuticals 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 Eton Pharmaceuticals has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Eton Pharmaceuticals 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.
Eton Pharmaceuticals Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Eton Pharmaceuticals are -
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 Eton Pharmaceuticals in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Now Eton Pharmaceuticals can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Eton Pharmaceuticals 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Eton Pharmaceuticals can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Eton Pharmaceuticals operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
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. Eton Pharmaceuticals 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 Eton Pharmaceuticals 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Eton Pharmaceuticals 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Eton Pharmaceuticals 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Eton Pharmaceuticals 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
– Eton Pharmaceuticals 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.
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. Eton Pharmaceuticals 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. Eton Pharmaceuticals 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Eton Pharmaceuticals 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 Eton Pharmaceuticals to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Eton Pharmaceuticals has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This can help Eton Pharmaceuticals to build a more holistic ecosystem for Eton Pharmaceuticals products in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Eton Pharmaceuticals 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.
Threats Eton Pharmaceuticals External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Eton Pharmaceuticals are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Eton Pharmaceuticals 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.
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 Eton Pharmaceuticals.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Eton Pharmaceuticals 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 Eton Pharmaceuticals prominent markets.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Eton Pharmaceuticals 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Eton Pharmaceuticals has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Eton Pharmaceuticals 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Eton Pharmaceuticals 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 Eton Pharmaceuticals is facing in Biotechnology & Drugs sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Eton Pharmaceuticals can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Eton Pharmaceuticals 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.
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 Eton Pharmaceuticals in the Biotechnology & Drugs sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Eton Pharmaceuticals 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.
Environmental challenges
– Eton Pharmaceuticals 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. Eton Pharmaceuticals can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Eton Pharmaceuticals Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Eton Pharmaceuticals 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 Eton Pharmaceuticals 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 Eton Pharmaceuticals 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 Eton Pharmaceuticals 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 Eton Pharmaceuticals needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.