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 – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, 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 -
Innovation driven organization
– Jointown Pharm is one of the most innovative firm in Major Drugs sector.
Learning organization
- Jointown Pharm is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Jointown Pharm is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Jointown Pharm emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Digital Transformation in Major Drugs industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Jointown Pharm digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Jointown 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.
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.
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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Jointown Pharm 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 Jointown Pharm have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Jointown Pharm in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Jointown Pharm has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Jointown Pharm to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
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.
Weaknesses of Jointown Pharm | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Jointown Pharm are -
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.
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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Jointown 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. Jointown Pharm should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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.
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.
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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Jointown 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 Jointown Pharm lucrative customers.
Employees’ less understanding of Jointown Pharm strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Jointown Pharm 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Major Drugs industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Jointown 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.
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.
Need for greater diversity
– Jointown Pharm 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.
Jointown Pharm Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Jointown Pharm are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Jointown Pharm 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.
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.
Manufacturing automation
– Jointown 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Jointown Pharm 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.
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.
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 Jointown 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Jointown 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.
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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Major Drugs industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Jointown Pharm can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Jointown Pharm External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Jointown Pharm 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. Jointown Pharm needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Major Drugs industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Jointown Pharm is facing in Major Drugs sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Jointown Pharm 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 Jointown Pharm prominent markets.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Jointown Pharm 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.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Jointown 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 Jointown 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.
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.
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 Jointown Pharm business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.