Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents
Marketers are often tasked with exploring the factors that impact the long-run adoption of a new product or technology. The new product under consideration here is the drug-eluting stent: a device which props open a clogged artery to the heart and then releases medication that reduces the risk of artery re-blockage. In light of recent medical and competitive trends in the market, the case prompts students to examine the future adoption of drug-eluting stents as well as to consider the potential marketing actions to be taken by Medtronic for ENDEAVOR - a newly approved stent that will hit the market in 2008.
Swot Analysis of "Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents" written by Elie Ofek includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Eluting Artery facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Innovation, Marketing and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Eluting Artery, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Eluting Artery operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Eluting Artery
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Sales & Marketing field.
4. Making a Sales & Marketing topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Eluting Artery
Strengths Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Eluting Artery in Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Eluting Artery has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Eluting Artery are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Eluting Artery digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Eluting Artery has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Training and development
– Eluting Artery has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
High brand equity
– Eluting Artery has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Eluting Artery to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Eluting Artery to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Eluting Artery to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Eluting Artery in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Eluting Artery is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Eluting Artery in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Eluting Artery is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Eluting Artery has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Eluting Artery has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Diverse revenue streams
– Eluting Artery is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Weaknesses Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents are -
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Elie Ofek suggests that, Eluting Artery is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Eluting Artery has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Eluting Artery has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Eluting Artery supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Eluting Artery vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Eluting Artery products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Eluting Artery needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Sales & Marketing strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Eluting Artery has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Eluting Artery is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Eluting Artery, firm in the HBR case study Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents, in the dynamic environment Eluting Artery has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Eluting Artery has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Eluting Artery has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Opportunities Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Eluting Artery is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Eluting Artery to increase its market reach. Eluting Artery will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Eluting Artery can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Eluting Artery operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Eluting Artery in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Sales & Marketing segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Eluting Artery can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Eluting Artery to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Developing new processes and practices
– Eluting Artery can develop new processes and procedures in Sales & Marketing industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Eluting Artery has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Eluting Artery can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Sales & Marketing segment.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Eluting Artery in the consumer business. Now Eluting Artery can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Eluting Artery can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Eluting Artery to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Eluting Artery to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Eluting Artery has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Eluting Artery to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents are -
Regulatory challenges
– Eluting Artery needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Sales & Marketing industry regulations.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Eluting Artery in the Sales & Marketing industry. The Sales & Marketing industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Eluting Artery business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Eluting Artery is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Eluting Artery with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Environmental challenges
– Eluting Artery needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Eluting Artery can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Eluting Artery can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Eluting Artery has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Eluting Artery needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Sales & Marketing sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Increasing wage structure of Eluting Artery
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Eluting Artery.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Eluting Artery needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Eluting Artery high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Examining the Adoption of Drug-Eluting Stents is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Eluting Artery needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
