Translate Bio (TBIO) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Translate Bio (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Translate Bio is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Translate Bio

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Translate Bio can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Translate Bio, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Translate Bio 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Translate Bio can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Translate Bio
2. Improving business portfolio management of Translate Bio
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 Translate Bio

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Strengths of Translate Bio | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Translate Bio are -

Training and development

– Translate Bio 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.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Translate Bio in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Translate Bio has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Translate Bio to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Biotechnology & Drugs industry

– Translate Bio has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Translate Bio to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Translate Bio to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

High brand equity

– Translate Bio has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Translate Bio to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Translate Bio has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Translate Bio 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Translate Bio 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Translate Bio 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 Translate Bio have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Strong track record of project management in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry

– Translate Bio is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Organizational Resilience of Translate Bio

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Translate Bio does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Translate Bio has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Translate Bio 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.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Translate Bio 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Translate Bio in Biotechnology & Drugs industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

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Weaknesses of Translate Bio | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Translate Bio are -

Employees’ less understanding of Translate Bio strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Translate Bio 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of United States, Translate Bio needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Need for greater diversity

– Translate Bio 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.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Translate Bio, in the dynamic environment of Biotechnology & Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Translate Bio has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Translate Bio, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Biotechnology & 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.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Translate Bio is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Translate Bio to provide better information regarding Biotechnology & Drugs products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Translate Bio has high operating costs in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Translate Bio lucrative customers.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Biotechnology & Drugs industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Translate Bio 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, Translate Bio has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Biotechnology & Drugs industry using digital technology.

Lack of clear differentiation of Translate Bio products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Translate Bio needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Translate Bio is one of the leading players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in last five years.

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Translate Bio Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Translate Bio are -

Identify volunteer opportunities

– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Translate Bio can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

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. Translate Bio 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. Translate Bio 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Translate Bio 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Translate Bio can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Translate Bio operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.

Buying journey improvements

– Translate Bio can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.

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 Translate Bio 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Translate Bio to increase its market reach. Translate Bio 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.

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. Translate Bio can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Translate Bio 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 Translate Bio to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Manufacturing automation

– Translate Bio 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.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Biotechnology & Drugs industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Translate Bio in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Now Translate Bio can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Translate Bio 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, Translate Bio is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Translate Bio 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.

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Threats Translate Bio External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Translate Bio are -

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Translate Bio 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.

Regulatory challenges

– Translate Bio 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry regulations.

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. Translate Bio needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Translate Bio is facing in Biotechnology & Drugs sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Translate Bio can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry.

Environmental challenges

– Translate Bio 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. Translate Bio can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Translate Bio has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Translate Bio needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Biotechnology & 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.

Increasing wage structure of Translate Bio

– 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 Translate Bio.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Translate Bio in Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The Biotechnology & Drugs industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Translate Bio 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.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Biotechnology & Drugs industry are lowering. It can presents Translate Bio with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Biotechnology & Drugs sector.

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 Translate Bio.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Translate Bio Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Translate Bio 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 Translate Bio 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 Translate Bio 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 Translate Bio 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 Translate Bio needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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