SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Protea Biosciences (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Protea Biosciences is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Protea Biosciences
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Protea Biosciences can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Protea Biosciences, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Protea 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 Protea Biosciences can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Protea Biosciences
2. Improving business portfolio management of Protea Biosciences
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Misc. Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Protea Biosciences
Strengths of Protea Biosciences | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Protea Biosciences are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Protea Biosciences has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Financial Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Protea Biosciences have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Protea Biosciences
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Protea Biosciences does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Protea Biosciences has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Protea Biosciences to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Protea Biosciences to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Protea Biosciences is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided Protea Biosciences 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)
– Protea Biosciences has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Protea Biosciences staying ahead in the Misc. Financial Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Protea Biosciences has one of the best training and development program in Financial 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Protea Biosciences in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Protea Biosciences has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Protea Biosciences to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Protea Biosciences is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Protea Biosciences comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Financial Services 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.
Learning organization
- Protea 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 Protea Biosciences is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Protea Biosciences emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– Protea 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.
High brand equity
– Protea Biosciences has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Protea Biosciences to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of Protea Biosciences | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Protea Biosciences are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Protea Biosciences has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry over the last five years. Protea Biosciences 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Protea Biosciences, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Financial Services 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.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Protea 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Protea Biosciences is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry in last five years.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Protea Biosciences has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Protea Biosciences, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Protea Biosciences has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Protea Biosciences needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Financial Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Protea Biosciences can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Protea Biosciences is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Protea Biosciences is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Protea Biosciences to provide better information regarding Misc. Financial Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Protea Biosciences products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Protea Biosciences needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Protea Biosciences supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Protea Biosciences is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Protea Biosciences vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Protea Biosciences is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but Protea Biosciences needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Protea Biosciences to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Protea Biosciences Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Protea Biosciences are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Financial Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Protea Biosciences can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Protea Biosciences has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help Protea Biosciences to build a more holistic ecosystem for Protea Biosciences products in the Misc. Financial Services 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, Protea Biosciences 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Protea Biosciences is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Protea Biosciences can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Financial Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Protea 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 Misc. Financial Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Financial Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Protea 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. Protea 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Protea 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Protea Biosciences has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Protea Biosciences to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Protea Biosciences to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Protea Biosciences 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
Manufacturing automation
– Protea Biosciences can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Financial Services 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Protea Biosciences can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Protea Biosciences operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Protea Biosciences 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 Protea Biosciences to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Protea 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.
Threats Protea Biosciences External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Protea Biosciences are -
Regulatory challenges
– Protea 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 Misc. Financial Services industry regulations.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Protea Biosciences with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Financial Services sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Financial Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Protea Biosciences can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Protea Biosciences is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Protea Biosciences business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Protea 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 Protea Biosciences.
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.
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 Protea Biosciences in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Protea Biosciences may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Financial Services sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Protea Biosciences in Misc. Financial Services industry. The Misc. Financial Services 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 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. Protea Biosciences needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Protea 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 Protea Biosciences prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Protea Biosciences 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 Protea Biosciences Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Protea 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 Protea 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 Protea 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 Protea 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 Protea Biosciences needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.