SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Evofem Biosciences (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Evofem Biosciences is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Evofem Biosciences
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Evofem Biosciences can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Evofem Biosciences, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Evofem Biosciences 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 Evofem Biosciences can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Evofem Biosciences
2. Improving business portfolio management of Evofem Biosciences
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 Evofem Biosciences
Strengths of Evofem Biosciences | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Evofem Biosciences are -
Organizational Resilience of Evofem Biosciences
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Evofem Biosciences does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Evofem Biosciences is one of the most innovative firm in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Evofem Biosciences is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Evofem Biosciences 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 Evofem Biosciences have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Evofem Biosciences 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Evofem Biosciences has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Evofem Biosciences has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Evofem Biosciences has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Evofem Biosciences to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Evofem Biosciences to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Evofem Biosciences 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 Evofem Biosciences is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Evofem Biosciences emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Evofem Biosciences 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 recruit top talent
– Evofem Biosciences 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.
Training and development
– Evofem Biosciences 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.
Analytics focus
– Evofem Biosciences 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 Evofem Biosciences | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Evofem Biosciences are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Evofem Biosciences 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 Evofem Biosciences can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Evofem Biosciences is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Evofem Biosciences products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Evofem Biosciences needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Evofem Biosciences 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Evofem Biosciences, 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Evofem Biosciences is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Evofem Biosciences to provide better information regarding Biotechnology & Drugs products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Evofem Biosciences 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Evofem Biosciences is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, but Evofem Biosciences needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Evofem Biosciences to focus more on services in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Evofem Biosciences 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. Evofem Biosciences should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Evofem Biosciences 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Evofem Biosciences 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 Evofem Biosciences lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Evofem Biosciences 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.
Evofem Biosciences Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Evofem Biosciences are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Evofem Biosciences 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Evofem Biosciences can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Evofem Biosciences operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Evofem Biosciences is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Evofem Biosciences 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.
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. Evofem Biosciences can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Evofem Biosciences 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Evofem Biosciences 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. Evofem Biosciences can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Evofem Biosciences 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Evofem Biosciences can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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 Evofem Biosciences 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Evofem Biosciences to increase its market reach. Evofem Biosciences 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.
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. Evofem Biosciences 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. Evofem Biosciences 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Evofem Biosciences 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.
Threats Evofem Biosciences External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Evofem Biosciences are -
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. Evofem Biosciences needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Evofem Biosciences.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Biotechnology & Drugs industry are lowering. It can presents Evofem Biosciences with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Evofem Biosciences has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Evofem Biosciences 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Evofem Biosciences 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.
Increasing wage structure of Evofem Biosciences
– 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 Evofem Biosciences.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Evofem Biosciences 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.
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. Evofem Biosciences can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Evofem Biosciences 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 Evofem Biosciences prominent markets.
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 Evofem Biosciences in the Biotechnology & Drugs sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Evofem Biosciences 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.
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. Evofem Biosciences 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.
Environmental challenges
– Evofem Biosciences 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. Evofem Biosciences can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Evofem Biosciences Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Evofem Biosciences 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 Evofem Biosciences 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 Evofem Biosciences 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 Evofem Biosciences 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 Evofem Biosciences needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
