ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. managers to do a situational analysis of the firm . It is an important technique to analyze the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. is facing in its current business environment.

The ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. is one of the leading firms in its industry. ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. maintains its dominant position in market by carefully analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis a highly interactive process and requires effective coordination among various departments within the firm such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.

Order Now - ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. SWOT Analysis
Check out- ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. PESTEL / PEST & Environment Analysis
Article continues after advertisement

The SWOT Analysis framework facilitates an organization to identify the internal strategic factors such as -strengths and weaknesses, & external strategic factors such as - opportunities and threats. It leads to a 2X2 matrix – also called SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. to develop four types of strategies:

SO (strengths-opportunities) Strategies
WO (weaknesses-opportunities) Strategies
ST (strengths-threats) Strategies
WT (weaknesses-threats) Strategies

ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. swot analysis / matrix

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The main purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a firm can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. SWOT Analysis

Strengths of ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading organizations in its industry, ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. has numerous strengths that enable it to thrive in the market place. These strengths not only help it to protect the market share in existing markets but also help in penetrating new markets. Based on Fern Fort University extensive research – some of the strengths of ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. are –

Read - ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
Article continues after advertisement

Strong Free Cash Flow – ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. is investing huge resources in training and development of its employees resulting in a workforce that is not only highly skilled but also motivated to achieve more.
Strong dealer community – It has built a culture among distributor & dealers where the dealers not only promote company’s products but also invest in training the sales team to explain to the customer how he/she can extract the maximum benefits out of the products.
Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
High level of customer satisfaction – the company with its dedicated customer relationship management department has able to achieve a high level of customer satisfaction among present customers and good brand equity among the potential customers.
Superb Performance in New Markets – ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. has built expertise at entering new markets and making success of them. The expansion has helped the organization to build new revenue stream and diversify the economic cycle risk in the markets it operates in.

Weakness of ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where an organization can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its competitive advantage and strategic positioning.

Article continues after advertisement

Days inventory is high compare to the competitors – making the company raise more capital to invest in the channel. This can impact the long term growth of ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc.
The marketing of the products left a lot to be desired. Even though the product is a success in terms of sale but its positioning and unique selling proposition is not clearly defined which can lead to the attacks in this segment from the competitors.
The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. are below the industry average.
The company has not being able to tackle the challenges present by the new entrants in the segment and has lost small market share in the niche categories. ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
There are gaps in the product range sold by the company. This lack of choice can give a new competitor a foothold in the market.
Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.

Opportunities for ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. – External Strategic Factors

Article continues after advertisement

Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc..
The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. to increase its profitability.
New environmental policies – The new opportunities will create a level playing field for all the players in the industry. It represent a great opportunity for ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. to capture new customers and increase its market share.

Threats ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. Facing - External Strategic Factors

Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc.
New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. in those markets.
Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
As the company is operating in numerous countries it is exposed to currency fluctuations especially given the volatile political climate in number of markets across the world.
New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Although the SWOT analysis is widely used as a strategic planning tool, the analysis does have its share of limitations.

Certain capabilities or factors of an organization can be both a strength and weakness at the same time. This is one of the major limitations of SWOT analysis . For example changing environmental regulations can be both a threat to company it can also be an opportunity in a sense that it will enable the company to be on a level playing field or at advantage to competitors if it able to develop the products faster than the competitors.
SWOT does not show how to achieve a competitive advantage, so it must not be an end in itself.
The matrix is only a starting point for a discussion on how proposed strategies could be implemented. It provided an evaluation window but not an implementation plan based on strategic competitiveness of ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc.
SWOT is a static assessment - analysis of status quo with few prospective changes. As circumstances, capabilities, threats, and strategies change, the dynamics of a competitive environment may not be revealed in a single matrix.
SWOT analysis may lead the firm to overemphasize a single internal or external factor in formulating strategies. There are interrelationships among the key internal and external factors that SWOT does not reveal that may be important in devising strategies.

Article continues after advertisement

Weighted SWOT Analysis of ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc.

In light of the above mentioned limitations of the SWOT analysis / matrix, corporate managers decided to provide weightage to each internal strength and weakness of the firm. Organizations also assess the likelihood of events taking place in the coming future and how strong their impact could be on company's performance.

This method is called Weighted SWOT analysis. It is better than doing simplistic SWOT analysis because with Weighted SWOT Analysis ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. managers can focus on the most critical factors and discount the non-important one. It also solves the long list problem where organizations ends up making a long list but none of the factors deemed too critical.

Limitation of Weighted SWOT analysis of ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc.

This approach also suffers from one major drawback - it focus on individual importance of factor rather than how they are collectively important and impact the business holistically.

Buy Custom Essay and Term Paper on SWOT Analysis / Matrix , Weighted SWOT Analysis of ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Example of Weighted SWOT Analysis

You can email us to get an example document of Weighted SWOT analysis.

SWOT Worksheet & Template

If you like to do your own SWOT analysis or want to make your own Weighted SWOT SWOT matrix then feel free to download Fern Fort University SWOT Analysis Template.

References / Citations & Bibliography

M. E. Porter, Competitive Strategy(New York: Free Press, 1980)
A. D. Chandler, Strategy and Structure (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1962)
O. E. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies(New York: Free Press, 1975);
L. Wrigley, Divisional Autonomy and Diversification (PhD, Harvard Business School, 1970)
R. E. White, Generic Business Strategies, Organizational Context and Performance: An Empirical Investigation, Strategic Management Journal7 (1986)