Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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 Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma
2. Improving business portfolio management of Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Biotechnology & Drugs sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma
Strengths of Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma are -
Innovation driven organization
– Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma is one of the most innovative firm in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma is one of the leading players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in Hong Kong. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Hong Kong. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma in Biotechnology & Drugs industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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 Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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.
Learning organization
- Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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 Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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 Hong Kong 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.
Organizational Resilience of Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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. Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma 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 dependence on Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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 Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma, in the dynamic environment of Biotechnology & Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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 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 Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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 Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma lucrative customers.
Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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.
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 Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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. Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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. Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma 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 Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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 Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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.
Threats Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma 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 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma 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. Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma 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.
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 Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma.
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. Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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.
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 Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma in the Biotechnology & Drugs sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma 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 Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma prominent markets.
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 Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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 Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma.
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. Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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
– Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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 Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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 Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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 Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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 Guangzhou Baiyunshan 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 Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharma needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.