SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Fisher&Paykel Healthcare (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Fisher&Paykel Healthcare is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
wage bills are increasing, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Fisher&Paykel Healthcare
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Fisher&Paykel Healthcare can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Fisher&Paykel Healthcare, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Fisher&Paykel Healthcare 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 Fisher&Paykel Healthcare can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Fisher&Paykel Healthcare
2. Improving business portfolio management of Fisher&Paykel Healthcare
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Fisher&Paykel Healthcare
Strengths of Fisher&Paykel Healthcare | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Fisher&Paykel Healthcare are -
Ability to lead change in
– Fisher&Paykel Healthcare is one of the leading players in the industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Fisher&Paykel Healthcare in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Fisher&Paykel Healthcare in the sector have low bargaining power. Fisher&Paykel Healthcare has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Fisher&Paykel Healthcare to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Fisher&Paykel Healthcare is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Fisher&Paykel Healthcare has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Fisher&Paykel Healthcare staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Fisher&Paykel Healthcare 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.
Training and development
– Fisher&Paykel Healthcare has one of the best training and development program in industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Fisher&Paykel Healthcare digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Fisher&Paykel Healthcare 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Fisher&Paykel Healthcare has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Fisher&Paykel Healthcare has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Fisher&Paykel Healthcare have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Fisher&Paykel Healthcare is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Fisher&Paykel Healthcare has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Fisher&Paykel Healthcare 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.
Learning organization
- Fisher&Paykel Healthcare is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Fisher&Paykel Healthcare is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Fisher&Paykel Healthcare emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Fisher&Paykel Healthcare | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Fisher&Paykel Healthcare are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Fisher&Paykel Healthcare is just above the industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Fisher&Paykel Healthcare needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Fisher&Paykel Healthcare has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Fisher&Paykel Healthcare should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Fisher&Paykel Healthcare products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Fisher&Paykel Healthcare needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Fisher&Paykel Healthcare is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Fisher&Paykel Healthcare to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Fisher&Paykel Healthcare 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 at Fisher&Paykel Healthcare can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Fisher&Paykel Healthcare is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Fisher&Paykel Healthcare has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Fisher&Paykel Healthcare is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
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 Fisher&Paykel Healthcare supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Fisher&Paykel Healthcare is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Fisher&Paykel Healthcare vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Fisher&Paykel Healthcare has high operating costs in the industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Fisher&Paykel Healthcare lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Fisher&Paykel Healthcare has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Fisher&Paykel Healthcare even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Fisher&Paykel Healthcare Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Fisher&Paykel Healthcare are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Fisher&Paykel Healthcare can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Fisher&Paykel Healthcare operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Fisher&Paykel Healthcare is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Fisher&Paykel Healthcare can utilize new technology in the field of industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Fisher&Paykel Healthcare can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Fisher&Paykel Healthcare 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 Fisher&Paykel Healthcare to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Fisher&Paykel Healthcare can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Fisher&Paykel Healthcare 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Fisher&Paykel Healthcare can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Fisher&Paykel Healthcare in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Fisher&Paykel Healthcare can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help Fisher&Paykel Healthcare to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Fisher&Paykel Healthcare to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Fisher&Paykel Healthcare has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Fisher&Paykel Healthcare to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Fisher&Paykel Healthcare to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Fisher&Paykel Healthcare 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 industry.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Fisher&Paykel Healthcare 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.
Threats Fisher&Paykel Healthcare External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Fisher&Paykel Healthcare are -
Regulatory challenges
– Fisher&Paykel Healthcare 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 industry regulations.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Fisher&Paykel Healthcare may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Fisher&Paykel Healthcare will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Fisher&Paykel Healthcare has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Fisher&Paykel Healthcare needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the 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.
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 Fisher&Paykel Healthcare business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Fisher&Paykel Healthcare 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 Fisher&Paykel Healthcare prominent markets.
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.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Fisher&Paykel Healthcare.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Fisher&Paykel Healthcare can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Fisher&Paykel Healthcare in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Fisher&Paykel Healthcare is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Fisher&Paykel Healthcare with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Fisher&Paykel Healthcare demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Fisher&Paykel Healthcare Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Fisher&Paykel Healthcare 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 Fisher&Paykel Healthcare 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 Fisher&Paykel Healthcare 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 Fisher&Paykel Healthcare 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 Fisher&Paykel Healthcare needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.