Itamar Medical W4 (ITMR_t4) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Itamar Medical W4 (Israel)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Itamar Medical W4 is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is backlash against globalization,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Itamar Medical W4
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Itamar Medical W4 can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Itamar Medical W4, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Itamar Medical W4 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 Itamar Medical W4 can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Itamar Medical W4
2. Improving business portfolio management of Itamar Medical W4
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Israel
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Itamar Medical W4
Strengths of Itamar Medical W4 | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Itamar Medical W4 are -
Analytics focus
– Itamar Medical W4 is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure of Israel is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Itamar Medical W4 in the sector have low bargaining power. Itamar Medical W4 has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Itamar Medical W4 to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Itamar Medical W4 is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Itamar Medical W4
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Itamar Medical W4 does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Itamar Medical W4 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
– Itamar Medical W4 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Itamar Medical W4 has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Itamar Medical W4 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
– Itamar Medical W4 is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Itamar Medical W4 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Itamar Medical W4 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 Itamar Medical W4 have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in
– Itamar Medical W4 is one of the leading players in the industry in Israel. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in Israel but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Itamar Medical W4 in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Itamar Medical W4 in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Itamar Medical W4 has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Itamar Medical W4 to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Itamar Medical W4 to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Itamar Medical W4 | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Itamar Medical W4 are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Itamar Medical W4 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Itamar Medical W4 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Itamar Medical W4 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.
High dependence on Itamar Medical W4 ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Itamar Medical W4 still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Itamar Medical W4 has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Itamar Medical W4, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Itamar Medical W4 has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Itamar Medical W4 is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Itamar Medical W4 needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Itamar Medical W4 to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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 Itamar Medical W4 supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Itamar Medical W4 is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Itamar Medical W4 vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Itamar Medical W4 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Itamar Medical W4 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. Itamar Medical W4 should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Itamar Medical W4 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 Itamar Medical W4 lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Israel, Itamar Medical W4 needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Itamar Medical W4 Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Itamar Medical W4 are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Itamar Medical W4 is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Itamar Medical W4 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Itamar Medical W4 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 Itamar Medical W4 to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Itamar Medical W4 to increase its market reach. Itamar Medical W4 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Itamar Medical W4 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Itamar Medical W4 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Itamar Medical W4 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 Itamar Medical W4 to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Itamar Medical W4 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 Itamar Medical W4 to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Itamar Medical W4 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 Itamar Medical W4 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Itamar Medical W4 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Itamar Medical W4 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Itamar Medical W4 can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Itamar Medical W4 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.
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 Itamar Medical W4 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.
Threats Itamar Medical W4 External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Itamar Medical W4 are -
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Itamar Medical W4 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 Itamar Medical W4 prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Itamar Medical W4 with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing wage structure of Itamar Medical W4
– 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 Itamar Medical W4.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Itamar Medical W4 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.
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.
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. Itamar Medical W4 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Itamar Medical W4 in industry. The 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Itamar Medical W4 is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Itamar Medical W4 has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Itamar Medical W4 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.
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. Itamar Medical W4 needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Itamar Medical W4 business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Itamar Medical W4 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Itamar Medical W4 Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Itamar Medical W4 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 Itamar Medical W4 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 Itamar Medical W4 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 Itamar Medical W4 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 Itamar Medical W4 needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
