SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Dawnrays Pharma (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Dawnrays Pharma is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Dawnrays Pharma can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dawnrays Pharma, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dawnrays 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 Dawnrays Pharma can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Dawnrays Pharma
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dawnrays 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 Dawnrays Pharma
Strengths of Dawnrays Pharma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Dawnrays Pharma are -
Training and development
– Dawnrays Pharma 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 recruit top talent
– Dawnrays 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Dawnrays Pharma in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Dawnrays Pharma has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Dawnrays Pharma to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Dawnrays Pharma has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Dawnrays Pharma in Biotechnology & Drugs industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Dawnrays Pharma 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.
Ability to lead change in Biotechnology & Drugs
– Dawnrays Pharma 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 Dawnrays Pharma in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Dawnrays 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 Dawnrays Pharma is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Dawnrays Pharma emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Dawnrays Pharma has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Dawnrays Pharma to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Dawnrays Pharma digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Dawnrays Pharma has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Analytics focus
– Dawnrays 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Dawnrays 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.
Weaknesses of Dawnrays Pharma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Dawnrays Pharma are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Dawnrays 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Dawnrays Pharma, in the dynamic environment of Biotechnology & Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Dawnrays Pharma 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 Hong Kong, Dawnrays Pharma needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Dawnrays Pharma is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Dawnrays 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.
Skills based hiring in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Dawnrays Pharma has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Dawnrays 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 Dawnrays Pharma lucrative customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Dawnrays Pharma 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 Dawnrays Pharma can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Dawnrays Pharma is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Dawnrays Pharma 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Dawnrays Pharma products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Dawnrays Pharma needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Dawnrays 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. Dawnrays Pharma should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Dawnrays Pharma 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.
Dawnrays Pharma Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Dawnrays Pharma are -
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. Dawnrays 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. Dawnrays 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.
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 Dawnrays Pharma in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Now Dawnrays Pharma can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Dawnrays Pharma can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Dawnrays Pharma operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Dawnrays Pharma to increase its market reach. Dawnrays Pharma will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Buying journey improvements
– Dawnrays 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Dawnrays 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.
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. Dawnrays Pharma can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Dawnrays 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.
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 Dawnrays 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Dawnrays 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Dawnrays 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Dawnrays Pharma is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Dawnrays 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Dawnrays Pharma can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Biotechnology & Drugs sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Threats Dawnrays Pharma External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Dawnrays Pharma are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Biotechnology & Drugs industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Dawnrays Pharma 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. Dawnrays Pharma needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Dawnrays 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Dawnrays Pharma demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Biotechnology & Drugs industry and other sectors.
Increasing wage structure of Dawnrays 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 Dawnrays Pharma.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Biotechnology & Drugs industry are lowering. It can presents Dawnrays Pharma with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
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 Dawnrays Pharma in the Biotechnology & Drugs sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Dawnrays Pharma is facing in Biotechnology & Drugs sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Dawnrays 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.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Dawnrays 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 Dawnrays Pharma prominent markets.
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 Dawnrays Pharma.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Dawnrays 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Dawnrays Pharma Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Dawnrays 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 Dawnrays 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 Dawnrays 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 Dawnrays 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 Dawnrays Pharma needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.