SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Benitec Biopharma Ltd (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Benitec Biopharma Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Benitec Biopharma Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Benitec Biopharma Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Benitec Biopharma Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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 Benitec Biopharma Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Benitec Biopharma Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Benitec Biopharma Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Biotechnology & Drugs sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Benitec Biopharma Ltd
Strengths of Benitec Biopharma Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Benitec Biopharma Ltd are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Benitec Biopharma Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This has provided Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Benitec Biopharma Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Analytics focus
– Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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 Australia 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
– Benitec Biopharma Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Benitec Biopharma Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Benitec Biopharma Ltd is one of the leading players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in Australia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Australia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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 Benitec Biopharma Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Biotechnology & Drugs
– Benitec Biopharma Ltd is one of the leading players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Benitec Biopharma Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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.
Learning organization
- Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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 Benitec Biopharma Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Benitec Biopharma Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Benitec Biopharma Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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)
– Benitec Biopharma Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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.
Weaknesses of Benitec Biopharma Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Benitec Biopharma Ltd are -
Employees’ less understanding of Benitec Biopharma Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Benitec Biopharma Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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. Benitec Biopharma Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Benitec Biopharma Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Biotechnology & Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Benitec Biopharma Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Need for greater diversity
– Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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 Benitec Biopharma Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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 Benitec Biopharma Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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 Benitec Biopharma Ltd lucrative customers.
Benitec Biopharma Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Benitec Biopharma Ltd are -
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. Benitec Biopharma Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Benitec Biopharma Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Benitec Biopharma Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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 Benitec Biopharma Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Benitec Biopharma Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Benitec Biopharma Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This can help Benitec Biopharma Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Benitec Biopharma Ltd products in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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 Benitec Biopharma Ltd to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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 Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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 Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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 Benitec Biopharma Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Benitec Biopharma Ltd in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Now Benitec Biopharma Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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.
Threats Benitec Biopharma Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Benitec Biopharma Ltd are -
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Benitec Biopharma Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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.
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 wage structure of Benitec Biopharma Ltd
– 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 Benitec Biopharma Ltd.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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.
Environmental challenges
– Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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. Benitec Biopharma Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Biotechnology & Drugs industry are lowering. It can presents Benitec Biopharma Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Benitec Biopharma Ltd is facing in Biotechnology & Drugs sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Benitec Biopharma Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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 Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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 Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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 Benitec Biopharma Ltd 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 Benitec Biopharma Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.