Oxford Biomedica Plc SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

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

The Oxford Biomedica Plc is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Oxford Biomedica Plc maintains its prominent 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.


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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 known as SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the Oxford Biomedica Plc 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 central purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a company can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Oxford Biomedica Plc strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Oxford Biomedica Plc SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Oxford Biomedica Plc – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, Oxford Biomedica Plc 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 Oxford Biomedica Plc are –

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• 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.
• Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Oxford Biomedica Plc products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
• Strong Free Cash Flow – Oxford Biomedica Plc has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Oxford Biomedica Plc is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
• 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.
• Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Oxford Biomedica Plc has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Oxford Biomedica Plc just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
• Strong distribution network – Over the years Oxford Biomedica Plc has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
• Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Oxford Biomedica Plc 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.

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Weakness of Oxford Biomedica Plc – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Oxford Biomedica Plc can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where a company can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its competitive advantage and strategic positioning.

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• 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.
• The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Oxford Biomedica Plc are below the industry average.
• Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
• High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Oxford Biomedica Plc has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
• Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Oxford Biomedica Plc 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.
• 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. Oxford Biomedica Plc 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.

Opportunities for Oxford Biomedica Plc – External Strategic Factors

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• 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.
• The new technology provides an opportunity to Oxford Biomedica Plc to practices differentiated pricing strategy in the new market. It will enable the firm to maintain its loyal customers with great service and lure new customers through other value oriented propositions.
• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Oxford Biomedica Plc 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 Oxford Biomedica Plc to capture new customers and increase its market share.
• The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Oxford Biomedica Plc to increase its profitability.
• New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Oxford Biomedica Plc . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
• Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Oxford Biomedica Plc.
• 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 Oxford Biomedica Plc in other product categories.

Threats Oxford Biomedica Plc Facing - External Strategic Factors

• 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 Oxford Biomedica Plc’s product especially in the emerging markets and low income markets.
• Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Oxford Biomedica Plc profitability.
• New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
• Liability laws in different countries are different and Oxford Biomedica Plc may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
• Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Oxford Biomedica Plc
• Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
• Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Oxford Biomedica Plc

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 Oxford Biomedica Plc
• 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 Oxford Biomedica Plc

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 Oxford Biomedica Plc 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 Oxford Biomedica Plc

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

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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)