United Therapeutics Corporation SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The United Therapeutics Corporation is one of the leading companies in its industry. United Therapeutics Corporation maintains its prominent position in market by carefully analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis an immensenly interactive process and requires effective coordination among various departments within the firm such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.

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The SWOT Analysis framework helps 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 United Therapeutics Corporation to develop four types of strategies:

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

United Therapeutics Corporation 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 United Therapeutics Corporation strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to United Therapeutics Corporation SWOT Analysis

Strengths of United Therapeutics Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading organizations in its industry, United Therapeutics Corporation 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 United Therapeutics Corporation are –

Read - United Therapeutics Corporation Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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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.
Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. United Therapeutics Corporation 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.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
Strong distribution network – Over the years United Therapeutics Corporation has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
Successful track record of integrating complimentary firms through mergers & acquisition. It has successfully integrated number of technology companies in the past few years to streamline its operations and to build a reliable supply chain.
Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – United Therapeutics Corporation is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to United Therapeutics Corporation products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.

Weakness of United Therapeutics Corporation – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where United Therapeutics Corporation 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.

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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.
Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, United Therapeutics Corporation needs to put more money in technology to integrate the processes across the board. Right now the investment in technologies is not at par with the vision of the company.
Limited success outside core business – Even though United Therapeutics Corporation is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
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.
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 United Therapeutics Corporation
Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though United Therapeutics Corporation is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.

Opportunities for United Therapeutics Corporation – External Strategic Factors

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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 United Therapeutics Corporation. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as United Therapeutics Corporation 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 United Therapeutics Corporation an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of United Therapeutics Corporation products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable United Therapeutics Corporation to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the United Therapeutics Corporation . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of United Therapeutics Corporation’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.
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 United Therapeutics Corporation to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.

Threats United Therapeutics Corporation 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.
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.
Imitation of the counterfeit and low quality product is also a threat to United Therapeutics Corporation’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.
Liability laws in different countries are different and United Therapeutics Corporation may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
Rising raw material can pose a threat to the United Therapeutics Corporation profitability.
Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for United Therapeutics Corporation in those markets.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for United Therapeutics Corporation

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 United Therapeutics Corporation
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 United Therapeutics Corporation

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 United Therapeutics Corporation 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 United Therapeutics Corporation

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)