CK Life Sciences (775) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for CK Life Sciences (Hong Kong)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , CK Life Sciences is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of CK Life Sciences

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that CK Life Sciences can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the CK Life Sciences, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which CK Life Sciences 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of CK Life Sciences can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of CK Life Sciences
2. Improving business portfolio management of CK Life Sciences
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 CK Life Sciences

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Strengths of CK Life Sciences | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of CK Life Sciences are -

Innovation driven organization

– CK Life Sciences is one of the most innovative firm in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the CK Life Sciences 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– CK Life Sciences is present in almost all the verticals within the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This has provided CK Life Sciences 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.

Training and development

– CK Life Sciences 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.

Ability to lead change in Biotechnology & Drugs

– CK Life Sciences is one of the leading players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled CK Life Sciences in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Biotechnology & Drugs industry

– CK Life Sciences has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled CK Life Sciences to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The sustainable margins have also helped CK Life Sciences to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that CK Life Sciences 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.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of CK Life Sciences in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. CK Life Sciences has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps CK Life Sciences to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Learning organization

- CK Life Sciences 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 CK Life Sciences is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at CK Life Sciences emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Analytics focus

– CK Life Sciences 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.

High brand equity

– CK Life Sciences has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled CK Life Sciences to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Highly skilled collaborators

– CK Life Sciences 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 CK Life Sciences have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

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Weaknesses of CK Life Sciences | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of CK Life Sciences are -

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, CK Life Sciences 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.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at CK Life Sciences, in the dynamic environment of Biotechnology & Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. CK Life Sciences has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

High dependence on CK Life Sciences ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of CK Life Sciences 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 CK Life Sciences has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, CK Life Sciences 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.

Need for greater diversity

– CK Life Sciences 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.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Biotechnology & Drugs industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, CK Life Sciences 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 operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, CK Life Sciences 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 CK Life Sciences lucrative 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 CK Life Sciences supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, CK Life Sciences is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left CK Life Sciences vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of CK Life Sciences 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.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, CK Life Sciences has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry over the last five years. CK Life Sciences even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of CK Life Sciences is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, but CK Life Sciences needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help CK Life Sciences to focus more on services in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

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CK Life Sciences Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of CK Life Sciences are -

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for CK Life Sciences 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.

Manufacturing automation

– CK Life Sciences 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of CK Life Sciences has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This can help CK Life Sciences to build a more holistic ecosystem for CK Life Sciences products in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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. CK Life Sciences 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. CK Life Sciences 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– CK Life Sciences 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 CK Life Sciences to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help CK Life Sciences to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Loyalty marketing

– CK Life Sciences 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for CK Life Sciences 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 CK Life Sciences to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

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. CK Life Sciences can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

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. CK Life Sciences can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at CK Life Sciences 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.

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 CK Life Sciences in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Now CK Life Sciences can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, CK Life Sciences 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, CK Life Sciences can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that CK Life Sciences operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.

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Threats CK Life Sciences External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of CK Life Sciences 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. CK Life Sciences 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.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– CK Life Sciences 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.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for CK Life Sciences 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.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– CK Life Sciences has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, CK Life Sciences 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.

Regulatory challenges

– CK Life Sciences 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 CK Life Sciences 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 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. CK Life Sciences needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Environmental challenges

– CK Life Sciences 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. CK Life Sciences can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry.

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.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that CK Life Sciences is facing in Biotechnology & Drugs sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Increasing wage structure of CK Life Sciences

– 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 CK Life Sciences.

Consumer confidence and its impact on CK Life Sciences 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 CK Life Sciences.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of CK Life Sciences Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at CK Life Sciences 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 CK Life Sciences 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 CK Life Sciences 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 CK Life Sciences 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 CK Life Sciences needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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