SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Miragen Therapeutics (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Miragen Therapeutics is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Miragen Therapeutics
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Miragen Therapeutics can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Miragen Therapeutics, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Miragen 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 Miragen Therapeutics can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Miragen Therapeutics
2. Improving business portfolio management of Miragen 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 Miragen Therapeutics
Strengths of Miragen Therapeutics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Miragen Therapeutics are -
High brand equity
– Miragen Therapeutics has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Miragen Therapeutics to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Miragen 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Miragen Therapeutics has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Miragen Therapeutics 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Miragen Therapeutics in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Miragen Therapeutics has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Miragen Therapeutics to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Miragen 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 Miragen Therapeutics is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Miragen Therapeutics emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Miragen 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 Miragen 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Miragen Therapeutics has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Miragen Therapeutics staying ahead in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Miragen Therapeutics 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Miragen 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.
Training and development
– Miragen 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Miragen Therapeutics has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Miragen Therapeutics to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Miragen Therapeutics to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Miragen Therapeutics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Miragen Therapeutics are -
High dependence on Miragen Therapeutics ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Miragen 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 Miragen Therapeutics has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Miragen 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, Miragen Therapeutics 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Miragen Therapeutics is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, but Miragen Therapeutics needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Miragen Therapeutics to focus more on services in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of Miragen Therapeutics strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Miragen Therapeutics 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Miragen Therapeutics 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. Miragen Therapeutics should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Miragen Therapeutics products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Miragen Therapeutics needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Miragen Therapeutics, 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Miragen 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 Miragen Therapeutics can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Miragen Therapeutics is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Miragen Therapeutics 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Miragen 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.
Miragen Therapeutics Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Miragen Therapeutics are -
Manufacturing automation
– Miragen 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Miragen Therapeutics 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.
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. Miragen Therapeutics 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. Miragen Therapeutics 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Miragen Therapeutics is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Miragen 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.
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. Miragen Therapeutics can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Miragen 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Miragen Therapeutics can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Miragen Therapeutics has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This can help Miragen Therapeutics to build a more holistic ecosystem for Miragen Therapeutics products in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Miragen 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 Miragen Therapeutics to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Miragen Therapeutics to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Miragen Therapeutics 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Miragen 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Miragen Therapeutics 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Miragen 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 Miragen Therapeutics External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Miragen Therapeutics are -
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 Miragen Therapeutics.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Miragen Therapeutics is facing in Biotechnology & Drugs sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Miragen Therapeutics 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 Miragen Therapeutics prominent markets.
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. Miragen Therapeutics can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Miragen Therapeutics needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
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 Miragen Therapeutics business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Miragen Therapeutics in the Biotechnology & Drugs sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Miragen Therapeutics 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. Miragen 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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Miragen 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Miragen 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Miragen Therapeutics Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Miragen 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 Miragen 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 Miragen 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 Miragen 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 Miragen Therapeutics needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
