3D Signatures (TDSGF) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for 3D Signatures (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , 3D Signatures is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of 3D Signatures

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that 3D Signatures can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the 3D Signatures, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which 3D Signatures 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 3D Signatures can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of 3D Signatures
2. Improving business portfolio management of 3D Signatures
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 3D Signatures

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Strengths of 3D Signatures | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of 3D Signatures are -

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of 3D Signatures 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.

Analytics focus

– 3D Signatures 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 Biotechnology & 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– 3D Signatures 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 3D Signatures have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Successful track record of launching new products

– 3D Signatures has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. 3D Signatures 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.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Biotechnology & Drugs industry

– 3D Signatures has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled 3D Signatures to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The sustainable margins have also helped 3D Signatures to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Digital Transformation in Biotechnology & Drugs industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For 3D Signatures digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. 3D Signatures 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.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of 3D Signatures in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. 3D Signatures has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps 3D Signatures to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Organizational Resilience of 3D Signatures

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing 3D Signatures does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Diverse revenue streams

– 3D Signatures is present in almost all the verticals within the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This has provided 3D Signatures 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.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that 3D Signatures 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the 3D Signatures 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.

Innovation driven organization

– 3D Signatures is one of the most innovative firm in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.

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Weaknesses of 3D Signatures | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of 3D Signatures are -

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of United States, 3D Signatures needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

3D Signatures has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at 3D Signatures, in the dynamic environment of Biotechnology & Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. 3D Signatures has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, 3D Signatures 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 3D Signatures lucrative customers.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As 3D Signatures 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.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Biotechnology & Drugs industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, 3D Signatures 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of 3D Signatures 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.

Need for greater diversity

– 3D Signatures 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that 3D Signatures 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 3D Signatures can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as 3D Signatures is planning to shift buying processes online.

Skills based hiring in Biotechnology & Drugs industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at 3D Signatures 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of 3D Signatures products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, 3D Signatures needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

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3D Signatures Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of 3D Signatures 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. 3D Signatures can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Loyalty marketing

– 3D Signatures 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– 3D Signatures 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects 3D Signatures can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for 3D Signatures 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 3D Signatures to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, 3D Signatures 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for 3D Signatures 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.

Manufacturing automation

– 3D Signatures 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, 3D Signatures is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. 3D Signatures 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– 3D Signatures has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Biotechnology & Drugs sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled 3D Signatures to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help 3D Signatures to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at 3D Signatures 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.

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. 3D Signatures 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. 3D Signatures 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, 3D Signatures can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help 3D Signatures to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

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Threats 3D Signatures External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of 3D Signatures are -

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 3D Signatures.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that 3D Signatures 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.

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.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– 3D Signatures has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, 3D Signatures 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.

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 3D Signatures business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Environmental challenges

– 3D Signatures 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. 3D Signatures can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry.

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. 3D Signatures needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, 3D Signatures 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 3D Signatures prominent markets.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for 3D Signatures 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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– 3D Signatures 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

– 3D Signatures 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.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Biotechnology & Drugs industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. 3D Signatures can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of 3D Signatures Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at 3D Signatures 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 3D Signatures 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 3D Signatures 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 3D Signatures 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 3D Signatures needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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