SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sunesis Pharma (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sunesis Pharma is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization,
geopolitical disruptions, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Sunesis Pharma can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sunesis Pharma, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sunesis 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 Sunesis Pharma can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sunesis Pharma
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sunesis Pharma
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Major Drugs sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Sunesis Pharma
Strengths of Sunesis Pharma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sunesis Pharma are -
Innovation driven organization
– Sunesis Pharma is one of the most innovative firm in Major Drugs sector.
Training and development
– Sunesis Pharma has one of the best training and development program in Healthcare industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Analytics focus
– Sunesis 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 Major 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Sunesis Pharma in Major Drugs industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Major Drugs industry
– Sunesis Pharma has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sunesis Pharma to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Major Drugs industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sunesis Pharma to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sunesis 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sunesis Pharma has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Sunesis Pharma staying ahead in the Major Drugs industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Sunesis Pharma in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Sunesis Pharma has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Sunesis Pharma to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Sunesis Pharma has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Major Drugs industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Sunesis Pharma have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Major Drugs industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Sunesis Pharma digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Sunesis Pharma has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Ability to lead change in Major Drugs
– Sunesis Pharma is one of the leading players in the Major Drugs industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Major Drugs industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Sunesis Pharma in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Sunesis Pharma
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Sunesis Pharma does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of Sunesis Pharma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sunesis Pharma are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Major Drugs industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Sunesis Pharma 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 Major Drugs industry.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Sunesis Pharma needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Sunesis Pharma products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Sunesis Pharma needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Sunesis Pharma needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Major Drugs industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Sunesis Pharma can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Sunesis Pharma is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Sunesis Pharma has some of the most successful models in the Major Drugs industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Sunesis Pharma should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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 Sunesis Pharma supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Sunesis Pharma is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Sunesis Pharma vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Sunesis Pharma is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Major Drugs industry, but Sunesis Pharma needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Sunesis Pharma to focus more on services in the Major Drugs industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Sunesis Pharma is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Sunesis Pharma to provide better information regarding Major Drugs products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Sunesis 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 Major Drugs industry using digital technology.
High dependence on Sunesis Pharma ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Sunesis Pharma still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Major Drugs industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Sunesis Pharma has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Sunesis Pharma, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Major Drugs industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Sunesis Pharma Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Sunesis Pharma are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sunesis Pharma has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Major Drugs sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Sunesis Pharma to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sunesis Pharma to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Sunesis Pharma 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sunesis 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 Major Drugs industry.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Sunesis Pharma to increase its market reach. Sunesis Pharma 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.
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 Sunesis Pharma 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Sunesis Pharma has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Major Drugs industry. This can help Sunesis Pharma to build a more holistic ecosystem for Sunesis Pharma products in the Major Drugs industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Sunesis Pharma can develop new processes and procedures in Major 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Sunesis Pharma 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 Sunesis Pharma to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sunesis Pharma is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sunesis Pharma can utilize new technology in the field of Major Drugs 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 Sunesis Pharma in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Major Drugs industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sunesis Pharma can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Sunesis Pharma can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Sunesis Pharma can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Major 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.
Threats Sunesis Pharma External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Sunesis Pharma are -
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. Sunesis Pharma needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Major Drugs industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Major Drugs industry are lowering. It can presents Sunesis Pharma with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Major Drugs sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Sunesis 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 Major 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 Sunesis Pharma in the Major Drugs sector and impact the bottomline 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 Sunesis Pharma.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Major Drugs industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Sunesis Pharma can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sunesis Pharma has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Major Drugs industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sunesis Pharma needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Major Drugs 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.
Environmental challenges
– Sunesis 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. Sunesis Pharma can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Major Drugs industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sunesis Pharma in Major Drugs industry. The Major 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Sunesis Pharma 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 Major Drugs industry regulations.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sunesis Pharma is facing in Major Drugs 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 Sunesis Pharma business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sunesis Pharma Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Sunesis 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 Sunesis 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 Sunesis 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 Sunesis 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 Sunesis Pharma needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.