SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Jointown Pharm (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Jointown Pharm is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Jointown Pharm can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Jointown Pharm, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Jointown 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 Jointown Pharm can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Jointown Pharm
2. Improving business portfolio management of Jointown 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 Jointown Pharm
Strengths of Jointown Pharm | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Jointown Pharm are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Jointown Pharm has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Jointown Pharm 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.
Analytics focus
– Jointown 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Jointown 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Jointown 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Major Drugs industry
– Jointown Pharm 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 Jointown Pharm
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Jointown Pharm does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Jointown Pharm is one of the leading players in the Major Drugs industry in China. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in China. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Ability to lead change in Major Drugs
– Jointown 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 Jointown Pharm in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Jointown Pharm is one of the most innovative firm in Major Drugs sector.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Jointown Pharm 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Jointown Pharm has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Jointown 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 Jointown Pharm in Major Drugs industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Jointown Pharm | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Jointown Pharm are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Jointown Pharm has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Jointown 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Jointown 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Jointown Pharm has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Major Drugs industry over the last five years. Jointown Pharm even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
High dependence on Jointown Pharm ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Jointown Pharm 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 Jointown Pharm has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Jointown Pharm needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Major Drugs industry, Jointown Pharm needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Jointown Pharm is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Major Drugs industry, but Jointown Pharm needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Jointown Pharm to focus more on services in the Major Drugs industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Jointown Pharm 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 Jointown Pharm can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Jointown Pharm is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Jointown 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Jointown Pharm 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.
Jointown Pharm Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Jointown Pharm are -
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. Jointown 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. Jointown 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Jointown Pharm 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Jointown Pharm has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Major Drugs industry. This can help Jointown Pharm to build a more holistic ecosystem for Jointown Pharm products in the Major Drugs industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Jointown Pharm 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 Jointown Pharm to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Jointown Pharm 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Jointown 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Jointown Pharm 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 Jointown Pharm to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Jointown Pharm 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, Jointown Pharm can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Jointown Pharm operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Major Drugs sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Jointown 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Major Drugs industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Jointown Pharm in the Major Drugs industry. Now Jointown Pharm can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Jointown Pharm can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Jointown Pharm is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Jointown 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Jointown 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.
Threats Jointown Pharm External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Jointown Pharm are -
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 Jointown Pharm in the Major Drugs sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Jointown Pharm 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 Major Drugs industry and other sectors.
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. Jointown Pharm can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Jointown Pharm.
Regulatory challenges
– Jointown Pharm 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.
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. Jointown Pharm needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Major Drugs industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Jointown Pharm has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Major Drugs industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Jointown 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Jointown 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.
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
– Jointown 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. Jointown Pharm can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Major Drugs industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Jointown 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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Major Drugs industry are lowering. It can presents Jointown Pharm with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Major Drugs sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Jointown Pharm Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Jointown 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 Jointown 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 Jointown 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 Jointown 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 Jointown Pharm needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.