SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Tasly Pharm (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Tasly Pharm is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Tasly Pharm can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Tasly Pharm, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Tasly Pharm 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 Tasly Pharm can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Tasly Pharm
2. Improving business portfolio management of Tasly Pharm
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Major Drugs sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Tasly Pharm
Strengths of Tasly Pharm | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Tasly Pharm are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Tasly Pharm has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Tasly Pharm 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Tasly Pharm in Major Drugs industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Major Drugs industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Tasly Pharm digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Tasly Pharm 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Tasly Pharm comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Major 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.
Training and development
– Tasly Pharm 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 Tasly Pharm in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Tasly Pharm has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Tasly Pharm to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Tasly Pharm 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.
Analytics focus
– Tasly Pharm 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 China 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 lead change in Major Drugs
– Tasly Pharm is one of the leading players in the Major Drugs industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Major Drugs industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Tasly Pharm in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Tasly Pharm has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Tasly Pharm to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of Tasly Pharm
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Tasly Pharm does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Tasly Pharm is one of the most innovative firm in Major Drugs sector.
Weaknesses of Tasly Pharm | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Tasly Pharm are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Tasly Pharm is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Major Drugs industry, but Tasly Pharm needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Tasly Pharm to focus more on services in the Major Drugs industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Tasly Pharm is one of the leading players in the Major Drugs industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Major Drugs industry in last five years.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Tasly Pharm has high operating costs in the Major Drugs industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Tasly Pharm lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Tasly Pharm 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. Tasly Pharm should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring in Major Drugs industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Tasly Pharm 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Tasly Pharm has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Major 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Tasly Pharm, 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Tasly Pharm is just above the Major 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Major Drugs industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Tasly Pharm 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Tasly Pharm products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Tasly Pharm needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Tasly Pharm, in the dynamic environment of Major Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Tasly Pharm has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Tasly Pharm Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Tasly Pharm 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. Tasly Pharm can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Manufacturing automation
– Tasly Pharm can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Major 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Tasly Pharm 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 Tasly Pharm to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Tasly Pharm has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Major Drugs industry. This can help Tasly Pharm to build a more holistic ecosystem for Tasly Pharm products in the Major Drugs 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 Tasly Pharm to increase its market reach. Tasly Pharm 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Tasly Pharm is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Tasly Pharm 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.
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 Tasly Pharm 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Major Drugs industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Tasly Pharm 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. Tasly Pharm 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Tasly Pharm 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Tasly Pharm 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Tasly Pharm 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Tasly Pharm 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Tasly Pharm can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Tasly Pharm operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Major Drugs sector.
Threats Tasly Pharm External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Tasly Pharm are -
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. Tasly Pharm 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, Tasly Pharm 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Tasly Pharm is facing in Major Drugs sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Tasly Pharm in the Major Drugs sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Tasly Pharm 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.
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 Tasly Pharm.
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. Tasly Pharm can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Tasly Pharm
– 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 Tasly Pharm.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Tasly Pharm 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. Tasly Pharm can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Major Drugs industry.
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
– Tasly Pharm 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 Major Drugs industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Tasly Pharm has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Major Drugs industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Tasly Pharm 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Tasly Pharm Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Tasly Pharm 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 Tasly Pharm 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 Tasly Pharm 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 Tasly Pharm 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 Tasly Pharm needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.