Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Strongbridge Biopharma plc is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Strongbridge Biopharma plc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Strongbridge Biopharma plc can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Strongbridge Biopharma plc, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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 Strongbridge Biopharma plc can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Strongbridge Biopharma plc
2. Improving business portfolio management of Strongbridge Biopharma plc
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 Strongbridge Biopharma plc
Strengths of Strongbridge Biopharma plc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Strongbridge Biopharma plc are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Strongbridge Biopharma plc has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
High brand equity
– Strongbridge Biopharma plc has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Strongbridge Biopharma plc to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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
– Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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 Strongbridge Biopharma plc have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Strongbridge Biopharma plc has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
Learning organization
- Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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 Strongbridge Biopharma plc is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Strongbridge Biopharma plc emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Strongbridge Biopharma plc in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Strongbridge Biopharma plc has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Strongbridge Biopharma plc to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Biotechnology & Drugs
– Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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 Strongbridge Biopharma plc in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Strongbridge Biopharma plc is present in almost all the verticals within the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This has provided Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
Weaknesses of Strongbridge Biopharma plc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Strongbridge Biopharma plc are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Strongbridge Biopharma plc products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Strongbridge Biopharma plc needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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 Strongbridge Biopharma plc can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Strongbridge Biopharma plc is planning to shift buying processes online.
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 Strongbridge Biopharma plc supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Strongbridge Biopharma plc is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Strongbridge Biopharma plc vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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. Strongbridge Biopharma plc should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on Strongbridge Biopharma plc ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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 Strongbridge Biopharma plc has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Strongbridge Biopharma plc strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
Strongbridge Biopharma plc Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Strongbridge Biopharma plc are -
Loyalty marketing
– Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Strongbridge Biopharma plc is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Strongbridge Biopharma plc can develop new processes and procedures in Biotechnology & Drugs industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Strongbridge Biopharma plc can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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. Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Strongbridge Biopharma plc can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
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. Strongbridge Biopharma plc can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Manufacturing automation
– Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
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. Strongbridge Biopharma plc can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Strongbridge Biopharma plc can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Strongbridge Biopharma plc operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Threats Strongbridge Biopharma plc External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Strongbridge Biopharma plc are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Biotechnology & Drugs industry are lowering. It can presents Strongbridge Biopharma plc with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
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.
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. Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
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 Strongbridge Biopharma plc business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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. Strongbridge Biopharma plc can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
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 Strongbridge Biopharma plc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Strongbridge Biopharma plc is facing in Biotechnology & Drugs sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Strongbridge Biopharma plc
– 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 Strongbridge Biopharma plc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Strongbridge Biopharma plc Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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 Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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 Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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 Strongbridge Biopharma plc 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 Strongbridge Biopharma plc needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
