SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Starlake Bioscience (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Starlake Bioscience is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Starlake Bioscience
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Starlake Bioscience can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Starlake Bioscience, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Starlake Bioscience 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 Starlake Bioscience can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Starlake Bioscience
2. Improving business portfolio management of Starlake Bioscience
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Starlake Bioscience
Strengths of Starlake Bioscience | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Starlake Bioscience are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Starlake Bioscience in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Starlake Bioscience has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Starlake Bioscience to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Starlake Bioscience 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
– Starlake Bioscience is one of the leading players in the Food Processing 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Starlake Bioscience has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Food Processing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Starlake Bioscience have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Starlake Bioscience 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.
High brand equity
– Starlake Bioscience has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Starlake Bioscience to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Starlake Bioscience is one of the most innovative firm in Food Processing sector.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Starlake Bioscience comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Food Processing 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry
– Starlake Bioscience has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Starlake Bioscience to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Starlake Bioscience to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Starlake Bioscience has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Starlake Bioscience staying ahead in the Food Processing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Starlake Bioscience digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Starlake Bioscience 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.
Training and development
– Starlake Bioscience has one of the best training and development program in Consumer/Non-Cyclical 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 Starlake Bioscience | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Starlake Bioscience are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Starlake Bioscience has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Food Processing 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 harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Starlake Bioscience is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Starlake Bioscience to provide better information regarding Food Processing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ less understanding of Starlake Bioscience strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Starlake Bioscience 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Food Processing industry, Starlake Bioscience 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Food Processing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Starlake Bioscience 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 Food Processing industry.
Lack of clear differentiation of Starlake Bioscience products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Starlake Bioscience needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Starlake Bioscience, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Starlake Bioscience has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Starlake Bioscience needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Starlake Bioscience is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Food Processing industry, but Starlake Bioscience needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Starlake Bioscience to focus more on services in the Food Processing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Starlake Bioscience 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 Food Processing industry using digital technology.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Starlake Bioscience, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Food Processing 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.
Starlake Bioscience Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Starlake Bioscience are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Starlake Bioscience can develop new processes and procedures in Food Processing 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Starlake Bioscience 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 Food Processing industry.
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 Starlake Bioscience 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Starlake Bioscience 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Starlake Bioscience is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Starlake Bioscience can utilize new technology in the field of Food Processing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Starlake Bioscience has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Food Processing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Starlake Bioscience to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Starlake Bioscience to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Starlake Bioscience 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.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Starlake Bioscience can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Starlake Bioscience has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Starlake Bioscience to build a more holistic ecosystem for Starlake Bioscience products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Starlake Bioscience can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Starlake Bioscience operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Starlake Bioscience 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Food Processing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Starlake Bioscience can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Buying journey improvements
– Starlake Bioscience can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Food Processing 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.
Threats Starlake Bioscience External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Starlake Bioscience are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Starlake Bioscience with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.
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 Starlake Bioscience in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Starlake Bioscience has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Starlake Bioscience needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Food Processing 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Starlake Bioscience 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 Food Processing 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
– Starlake Bioscience 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 Food Processing industry.
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 Starlake Bioscience.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Starlake Bioscience 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.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Starlake Bioscience 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. Starlake Bioscience can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing industry.
Increasing wage structure of Starlake Bioscience
– 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 Starlake Bioscience.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Food Processing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Starlake Bioscience 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, Starlake Bioscience 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 Starlake Bioscience prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Starlake Bioscience Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Starlake Bioscience 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 Starlake Bioscience 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 Starlake Bioscience 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 Starlake Bioscience 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 Starlake Bioscience needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.