SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Zhongyuan Unio (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Zhongyuan Unio is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
geopolitical disruptions, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Zhongyuan Unio can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Zhongyuan Unio, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Zhongyuan Unio 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 Zhongyuan Unio can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Zhongyuan Unio
2. Improving business portfolio management of Zhongyuan Unio
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Biotechnology & Drugs sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Zhongyuan Unio
Strengths of Zhongyuan Unio | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Zhongyuan Unio are -
Digital Transformation in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Zhongyuan Unio digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Zhongyuan Unio 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Zhongyuan Unio is present in almost all the verticals within the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This has provided Zhongyuan Unio 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Zhongyuan Unio 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Zhongyuan Unio is one of the leading players in the Biotechnology & 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.
High brand equity
– Zhongyuan Unio has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Zhongyuan Unio to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Zhongyuan Unio has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Zhongyuan Unio to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Zhongyuan Unio to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Zhongyuan Unio 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 Zhongyuan Unio is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Zhongyuan Unio emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Biotechnology & Drugs
– Zhongyuan Unio is one of the leading players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Zhongyuan Unio in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Zhongyuan Unio has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Zhongyuan Unio 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.
Organizational Resilience of Zhongyuan Unio
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Zhongyuan Unio does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Zhongyuan Unio 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.
Training and development
– Zhongyuan Unio 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.
Weaknesses of Zhongyuan Unio | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Zhongyuan Unio are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Zhongyuan Unio 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Zhongyuan Unio needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Zhongyuan Unio 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 Zhongyuan Unio 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 Zhongyuan Unio can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Zhongyuan Unio is planning to shift buying processes online.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Zhongyuan Unio 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Zhongyuan Unio is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Zhongyuan Unio to provide better information regarding Biotechnology & Drugs products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Zhongyuan Unio has some of the most successful models in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Zhongyuan Unio should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Zhongyuan Unio 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Zhongyuan Unio, in the dynamic environment of Biotechnology & Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Zhongyuan Unio has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Zhongyuan Unio products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Zhongyuan Unio needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Zhongyuan Unio 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.
Zhongyuan Unio Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Zhongyuan Unio are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Zhongyuan Unio has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This can help Zhongyuan Unio to build a more holistic ecosystem for Zhongyuan Unio products in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Zhongyuan Unio is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Zhongyuan Unio 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Zhongyuan Unio to increase its market reach. Zhongyuan Unio 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Zhongyuan Unio 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Zhongyuan Unio 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Zhongyuan Unio 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.
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. Zhongyuan Unio can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Zhongyuan Unio can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Zhongyuan Unio operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
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. Zhongyuan Unio 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. Zhongyuan Unio 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Zhongyuan Unio 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Zhongyuan Unio 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Zhongyuan Unio can develop new processes and procedures in Biotechnology & 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.
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 Zhongyuan Unio in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Now Zhongyuan Unio can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Zhongyuan Unio External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Zhongyuan Unio are -
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.
Increasing wage structure of Zhongyuan Unio
– 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 Zhongyuan Unio.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Zhongyuan Unio 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 Zhongyuan Unio prominent markets.
Regulatory challenges
– Zhongyuan Unio 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.
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 Zhongyuan Unio.
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 Zhongyuan Unio in the Biotechnology & Drugs sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Zhongyuan Unio can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
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 Zhongyuan Unio business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Zhongyuan Unio 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Zhongyuan Unio has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Zhongyuan Unio 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Zhongyuan Unio is facing in Biotechnology & Drugs sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Zhongyuan Unio 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Zhongyuan Unio Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Zhongyuan Unio 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 Zhongyuan Unio 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 Zhongyuan Unio 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 Zhongyuan Unio 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 Zhongyuan Unio needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
