SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Opiant Pharma (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Opiant Pharma is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , technology disruption,
geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Opiant Pharma can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Opiant Pharma, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Opiant Pharma 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 Opiant Pharma can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Opiant Pharma
2. Improving business portfolio management of Opiant Pharma
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 Opiant Pharma
Strengths of Opiant Pharma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Opiant Pharma are -
Learning organization
- Opiant Pharma 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 Opiant Pharma is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Opiant Pharma emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Opiant Pharma is present in almost all the verticals within the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This has provided Opiant Pharma 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Opiant Pharma in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Opiant Pharma has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Opiant Pharma to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Opiant Pharma
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Opiant Pharma does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Opiant Pharma has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Opiant Pharma to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Opiant Pharma 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Opiant Pharma 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
– Opiant Pharma has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Opiant Pharma to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Opiant Pharma to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Opiant Pharma in Biotechnology & Drugs industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Opiant Pharma 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.
Ability to lead change in Biotechnology & Drugs
– Opiant Pharma 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 Opiant Pharma in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Opiant Pharma is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Opiant Pharma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Opiant Pharma are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Opiant Pharma 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. Opiant Pharma even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Opiant Pharma needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Opiant Pharma, in the dynamic environment of Biotechnology & Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Opiant Pharma has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Opiant Pharma 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Opiant Pharma 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Opiant Pharma 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Opiant Pharma products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Opiant Pharma 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, Opiant Pharma 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Opiant Pharma is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Opiant Pharma to provide better information regarding Biotechnology & Drugs products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ less understanding of Opiant Pharma strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Opiant Pharma 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Opiant Pharma is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, but Opiant Pharma needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Opiant Pharma to focus more on services in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opiant Pharma Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Opiant Pharma are -
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Opiant Pharma can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Opiant Pharma 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Opiant Pharma 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 Opiant Pharma to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Opiant Pharma to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Opiant Pharma can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Opiant Pharma operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
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. Opiant Pharma 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. Opiant Pharma 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Opiant Pharma 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.
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 Opiant Pharma in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Now Opiant Pharma can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Opiant Pharma has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This can help Opiant Pharma to build a more holistic ecosystem for Opiant Pharma products in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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. Opiant Pharma can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Opiant Pharma can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Opiant Pharma 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Opiant Pharma 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Opiant Pharma 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 Opiant Pharma to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Opiant Pharma External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Opiant Pharma are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Opiant Pharma 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.
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.
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 Opiant Pharma in the Biotechnology & Drugs sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Opiant Pharma 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.
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 Opiant Pharma.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Opiant Pharma can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
Environmental challenges
– Opiant Pharma 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. Opiant Pharma can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Opiant Pharma 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 Opiant Pharma prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Opiant Pharma 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Opiant Pharma 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.
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 Opiant Pharma business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Opiant Pharma
– 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 Opiant Pharma.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Opiant Pharma Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Opiant Pharma 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 Opiant Pharma 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 Opiant Pharma 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 Opiant Pharma 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 Opiant Pharma needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.