Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. maintains its prominent position in market by critically analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis an immensenly interactive process and requires effective coordination among various departments within the organization such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.

Order Now - Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. SWOT Analysis
Check out- Conatus 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 Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. to develop four types of strategies:

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

Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. swot analysis / matrix

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

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

Step by Step Guide to Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. 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 Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. are –

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

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.
Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Conatus 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 Free Cash Flow – Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
Strong distribution network – Over the years Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.

Weakness of Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. 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.

Article continues after advertisement

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. Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
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 Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc.
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 Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
Limited success outside core business – Even though Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. 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.
Financial planning is not done properly and efficiently. The current asset ratio and liquid asset ratios suggest that the company can use the cash more efficiently than what it is doing at present.

Opportunities for Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. – External Strategic Factors

Article continues after advertisement

New customers from online channel – Over the past few years the company has invested vast sum of money into the online platform. This investment has opened new sales channel for Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc.. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
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 Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. to increase its profitability.
Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
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 Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. in other product categories.
Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. to capture new customers and increase its market share.
Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc..

Threats Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. 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.
Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc.
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 .
No regular supply of innovative products – Over the years the company has developed numerous products but those are often response to the development by other players. Secondly the supply of new products is not regular thus leading to high and low swings in the sales number over period of time.
New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Conatus 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 Conatus 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 Conatus 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 Conatus 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 Conatus 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 Conatus 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)