SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Eurobio Scientific (France)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Eurobio Scientific is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Eurobio Scientific
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Eurobio Scientific can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Eurobio Scientific, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Eurobio Scientific 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 Eurobio Scientific can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Eurobio Scientific
2. Improving business portfolio management of Eurobio Scientific
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in France
4. Making a Biotechnology & Drugs sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Eurobio Scientific
Strengths of Eurobio Scientific | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Eurobio Scientific are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Eurobio Scientific 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Eurobio Scientific is one of the most innovative firm in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Training and development
– Eurobio Scientific 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.
Learning organization
- Eurobio Scientific 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 Eurobio Scientific is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Eurobio Scientific emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Eurobio Scientific has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Eurobio Scientific to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Eurobio Scientific to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Eurobio Scientific has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Eurobio Scientific to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Eurobio Scientific is one of the leading players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in France. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in France. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Strong track record of project management in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Eurobio Scientific is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Eurobio Scientific comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Biotechnology & 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Eurobio Scientific in Biotechnology & Drugs industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Eurobio Scientific
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Eurobio Scientific does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Eurobio Scientific in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Eurobio Scientific has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Eurobio Scientific to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Eurobio Scientific | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Eurobio Scientific are -
Employees’ less understanding of Eurobio Scientific strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Eurobio Scientific 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Eurobio Scientific 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 Eurobio Scientific lucrative customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Eurobio Scientific products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Eurobio Scientific needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in France, Eurobio Scientific 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.
High dependence on Eurobio Scientific ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Eurobio Scientific 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 Eurobio Scientific has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Eurobio Scientific, in the dynamic environment of Biotechnology & Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Eurobio Scientific has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Eurobio Scientific 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 Eurobio Scientific can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Eurobio Scientific is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Eurobio Scientific 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Eurobio Scientific is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, but Eurobio Scientific needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Eurobio Scientific to focus more on services in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Eurobio Scientific 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.
Skills based hiring in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Eurobio Scientific 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.
Eurobio Scientific Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Eurobio Scientific are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Eurobio Scientific can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Developing new processes and practices
– Eurobio Scientific 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Eurobio Scientific 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 Eurobio Scientific to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Eurobio Scientific to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Eurobio Scientific can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Eurobio Scientific operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Eurobio Scientific has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This can help Eurobio Scientific to build a more holistic ecosystem for Eurobio Scientific products in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Eurobio Scientific 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
– Eurobio Scientific 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.
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 Eurobio Scientific in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Now Eurobio Scientific can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Eurobio Scientific can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Eurobio Scientific 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 Eurobio Scientific to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Eurobio Scientific 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.
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 Eurobio Scientific 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Eurobio Scientific 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.
Threats Eurobio Scientific External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Eurobio Scientific are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Eurobio Scientific 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.
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. Eurobio Scientific 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Biotechnology & Drugs industry are lowering. It can presents Eurobio Scientific with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Eurobio Scientific 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.
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 Eurobio Scientific business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Eurobio Scientific has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Eurobio Scientific 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Eurobio Scientific 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.
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 Eurobio Scientific.
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. Eurobio Scientific can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Eurobio Scientific needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Eurobio Scientific 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. Eurobio Scientific can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
Increasing wage structure of Eurobio Scientific
– 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 Eurobio Scientific.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Eurobio Scientific Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Eurobio Scientific 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 Eurobio Scientific 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 Eurobio Scientific 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 Eurobio Scientific 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 Eurobio Scientific needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
