Santen Pharmaceutical Co (SNPHY) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Santen Pharmaceutical Co (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Santen Pharmaceutical Co is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Santen Pharmaceutical Co
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Santen Pharmaceutical Co can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Santen Pharmaceutical Co, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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 Santen Pharmaceutical Co can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Santen Pharmaceutical Co
2. Improving business portfolio management of Santen Pharmaceutical Co
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Santen Pharmaceutical Co
Strengths of Santen Pharmaceutical Co | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Santen Pharmaceutical Co are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Santen Pharmaceutical Co is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in
– Santen Pharmaceutical Co is one of the leading players in the industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Santen Pharmaceutical Co in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Santen Pharmaceutical Co has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Santen Pharmaceutical Co to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Santen Pharmaceutical Co to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Santen Pharmaceutical Co is one of the leading players in the 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.
High brand equity
– Santen Pharmaceutical Co has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Santen Pharmaceutical Co to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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 Santen Pharmaceutical Co is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Santen Pharmaceutical Co emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Santen Pharmaceutical Co has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Santen Pharmaceutical Co have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Santen Pharmaceutical Co in the sector have low bargaining power. Santen Pharmaceutical Co has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Santen Pharmaceutical Co to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Santen Pharmaceutical Co has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Santen Pharmaceutical Co has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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.
Weaknesses of Santen Pharmaceutical Co | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Santen Pharmaceutical Co are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Santen Pharmaceutical Co, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Santen Pharmaceutical Co is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Santen Pharmaceutical Co to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Santen Pharmaceutical Co needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Santen Pharmaceutical Co needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Santen Pharmaceutical Co can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Santen Pharmaceutical Co is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Santen Pharmaceutical Co, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Santen Pharmaceutical Co has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on Santen Pharmaceutical Co ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Santen Pharmaceutical Co still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Santen Pharmaceutical Co has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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 industry using digital technology.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Santen Pharmaceutical Co is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Santen Pharmaceutical Co needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Santen Pharmaceutical Co to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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 industry.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Santen Pharmaceutical Co is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Santen Pharmaceutical Co Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Santen Pharmaceutical Co are -
Manufacturing automation
– Santen Pharmaceutical Co can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in 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.
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. Santen Pharmaceutical Co can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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 Santen Pharmaceutical Co can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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. Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Santen Pharmaceutical Co has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Santen Pharmaceutical Co to build a more holistic ecosystem for Santen Pharmaceutical Co products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Santen Pharmaceutical Co to increase its market reach. Santen Pharmaceutical Co will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Santen Pharmaceutical Co to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Santen Pharmaceutical Co has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Santen Pharmaceutical Co to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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, Santen Pharmaceutical Co can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Santen Pharmaceutical Co operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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 Santen Pharmaceutical Co to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Santen Pharmaceutical Co External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Santen Pharmaceutical Co are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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 industry and other sectors.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Santen Pharmaceutical Co has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Santen Pharmaceutical Co needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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 Santen Pharmaceutical Co prominent markets.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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 industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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 industry regulations.
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 Santen Pharmaceutical Co in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Santen Pharmaceutical Co
– 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 Santen Pharmaceutical Co.
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 Santen Pharmaceutical Co business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Santen Pharmaceutical Co may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
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.
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 Santen Pharmaceutical Co.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Santen Pharmaceutical Co Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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 Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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 Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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 Santen Pharmaceutical Co 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 Santen Pharmaceutical Co needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
