AC Immune SA SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by AC Immune SA managers to do a situational analysis of the company . It is a handy technique to understand the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) AC Immune SA is facing in its current business environment.

The AC Immune SA is one of the leading companies in its industry. AC Immune SA 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 company such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.

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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 enables the managers of the AC Immune SA to develop four types of strategies:

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

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The core purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a company can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect AC Immune SA strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to AC Immune SA SWOT Analysis

Strengths of AC Immune SA – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading organizations in its industry, AC Immune SA has numerous strengths that help 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 AC Immune SA are –

Read - AC Immune SA Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to AC Immune SA products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
Superb Performance in New Markets – AC Immune SA 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.
Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. AC Immune SA 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 Brand Portfolio – Over the years AC Immune SA has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of AC Immune SA just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – AC Immune SA is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.

Weakness of AC Immune SA – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where AC Immune SA can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where a firm can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its competitive advantage and strategic positioning.

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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. AC Immune SA has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
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.
Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though AC Immune SA is spending above the industry average on Research and Development, it has not been able to compete with the leading players in the industry in terms of innovation. It has come across as a mature firm looking forward to bring out products based on tested features in the market.
Not very good at product demand forecasting leading to higher rate of missed opportunities compare to its competitors. One of the reason why the days inventory is high compare to its competitors is that AC Immune SA is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
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.
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 AC Immune SA

Opportunities for AC Immune SA – External Strategic Factors

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The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as AC Immune SA to increase its profitability.
Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of AC Immune SA.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of AC Immune SA’s products thus providing an opportunity to the company - either to boost its profitability or pass on the benefits to the customers to gain market share.
Stable free cash flow provides opportunities to invest in adjacent product segments. With more cash in bank the company can invest in new technologies as well as in new products segments. This should open a window of opportunity for AC Immune SA in other product categories.
Organization’s core competencies can be a success in similar other products field. A comparative example could be - GE healthcare research helped it in developing better Oil drilling machines.
Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of AC Immune SA products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable AC Immune SA to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for AC Immune SA to capture new customers and increase its market share.

Threats AC Immune SA Facing - External Strategic Factors

The demand of the highly profitable products is seasonal in nature and any unlikely event during the peak season may impact the profitability of the company in short to medium term.
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.
Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to AC Immune SA’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
Rising raw material can pose a threat to the AC Immune SA profitability.
Liability laws in different countries are different and AC Immune SA may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
Intense competition – Stable profitability has increased the number of players in the industry over last two years which has put downward pressure on not only profitability but also on overall sales.
Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of AC Immune SA

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for AC Immune SA

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 AC Immune SA
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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of AC Immune SA

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 AC Immune SA 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 AC Immune SA

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.

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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)