SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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 Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm
2. Improving business portfolio management of Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm
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 Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm
Strengths of Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm are -
Ability to lead change in Biotechnology & Drugs
– Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm 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 Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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.
High brand equity
– Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm 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 Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm 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.
Training and development
– Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm is present in almost all the verticals within the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This has provided Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm 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.
Weaknesses of Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm 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 Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm 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. Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, but Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm to focus more on services in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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 dependence on Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Biotechnology & Drugs industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm, in the dynamic environment of Biotechnology & Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm 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.
Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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. Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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
– Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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.
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 Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm to increase its market reach. Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm 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 Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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 Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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.
Threats Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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. Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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, Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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 Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry and other sectors.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
Increasing wage structure of Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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 Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm.
Regulatory challenges
– Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry regulations.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Biotechnology & Drugs industry are lowering. It can presents Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
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. Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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 Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm is facing in Biotechnology & Drugs sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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 Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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 Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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 Zhejiang Jiuzhou 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 Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharm needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
