SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Nanjing Hicin Pharma (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Nanjing Hicin Pharma is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Nanjing Hicin Pharma
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Nanjing Hicin Pharma can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Nanjing Hicin Pharma, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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 Nanjing Hicin Pharma can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Nanjing Hicin Pharma
2. Improving business portfolio management of Nanjing Hicin Pharma
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 Nanjing Hicin Pharma
Strengths of Nanjing Hicin Pharma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Nanjing Hicin Pharma are -
Innovation driven organization
– Nanjing Hicin Pharma is one of the most innovative firm in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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 Nanjing Hicin Pharma have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Nanjing Hicin Pharma
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Nanjing Hicin Pharma does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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 Biotechnology & 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.
Digital Transformation in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Nanjing Hicin Pharma digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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
– Nanjing Hicin Pharma is present in almost all the verticals within the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This has provided Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Nanjing Hicin Pharma is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Nanjing Hicin Pharma in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Nanjing Hicin Pharma has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Nanjing Hicin Pharma to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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 Nanjing Hicin Pharma is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Nanjing Hicin Pharma emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Nanjing Hicin Pharma has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Nanjing Hicin Pharma in Biotechnology & Drugs industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Nanjing Hicin Pharma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Nanjing Hicin Pharma are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Nanjing Hicin Pharma has high operating costs in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Nanjing Hicin Pharma lucrative customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Nanjing Hicin Pharma products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Nanjing Hicin Pharma needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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. Nanjing Hicin Pharma should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Nanjing Hicin Pharma is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Nanjing Hicin Pharma to provide better information regarding Biotechnology & Drugs products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High dependence on Nanjing Hicin Pharma ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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 Nanjing Hicin Pharma has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Nanjing Hicin Pharma, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Biotechnology & 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.
Skills based hiring in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Nanjing Hicin Pharma strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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.
Nanjing Hicin Pharma Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Nanjing Hicin Pharma are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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.
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 Nanjing Hicin Pharma in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Now Nanjing Hicin Pharma can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Nanjing Hicin Pharma is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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.
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. Nanjing Hicin Pharma can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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
– Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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 Nanjing Hicin Pharma to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Nanjing Hicin Pharma to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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 Nanjing Hicin Pharma to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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.
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. Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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. Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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.
Threats Nanjing Hicin Pharma External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Nanjing Hicin Pharma are -
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. Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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 Nanjing Hicin Pharma.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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.
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 Nanjing Hicin Pharma business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Biotechnology & Drugs industry are lowering. It can presents Nanjing Hicin Pharma with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Nanjing Hicin Pharma in Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The Biotechnology & 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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.
Increasing wage structure of Nanjing Hicin Pharma
– 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 Nanjing Hicin Pharma.
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 Nanjing Hicin Pharma in the Biotechnology & Drugs sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
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. Nanjing Hicin Pharma needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Nanjing Hicin Pharma has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Nanjing Hicin Pharma Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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 Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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 Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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 Nanjing Hicin Pharma 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 Nanjing Hicin Pharma needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
