SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Medical&Biological Laboratories (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Medical&Biological Laboratories is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Medical&Biological Laboratories
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Medical&Biological Laboratories can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Medical&Biological Laboratories, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Medical&Biological Laboratories 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 Medical&Biological Laboratories can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Medical&Biological Laboratories
2. Improving business portfolio management of Medical&Biological Laboratories
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Healthcare Facilities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Medical&Biological Laboratories
Strengths of Medical&Biological Laboratories | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Medical&Biological Laboratories are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Healthcare Facilities industry
– Medical&Biological Laboratories has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Medical&Biological Laboratories to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Healthcare Facilities industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Medical&Biological Laboratories to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Healthcare Facilities
– Medical&Biological Laboratories is one of the leading players in the Healthcare Facilities industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Healthcare Facilities industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Medical&Biological Laboratories in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Medical&Biological Laboratories
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Medical&Biological Laboratories does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Medical&Biological Laboratories has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Medical&Biological Laboratories 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Medical&Biological Laboratories is one of the leading players in the Healthcare Facilities industry in Japan. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Japan. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Diverse revenue streams
– Medical&Biological Laboratories is present in almost all the verticals within the Healthcare Facilities industry. This has provided Medical&Biological Laboratories 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Medical&Biological Laboratories 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Healthcare Facilities industry
– Medical&Biological Laboratories is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High brand equity
– Medical&Biological Laboratories has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Medical&Biological Laboratories to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Medical&Biological Laboratories has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Medical&Biological Laboratories staying ahead in the Healthcare Facilities 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 Medical&Biological Laboratories comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Healthcare Facilities 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Medical&Biological Laboratories is one of the most innovative firm in Healthcare Facilities sector.
Weaknesses of Medical&Biological Laboratories | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Medical&Biological Laboratories are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Medical&Biological Laboratories needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Healthcare Facilities industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Medical&Biological Laboratories can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Medical&Biological Laboratories is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Healthcare Facilities industry, Medical&Biological Laboratories 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Medical&Biological Laboratories products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Medical&Biological Laboratories needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring in Healthcare Facilities industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Medical&Biological Laboratories 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Medical&Biological Laboratories has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Employees’ less understanding of Medical&Biological Laboratories strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Medical&Biological Laboratories don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Medical&Biological Laboratories is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Medical&Biological Laboratories to provide better information regarding Healthcare Facilities products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Medical&Biological Laboratories has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Healthcare Facilities industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Medical&Biological Laboratories has some of the most successful models in the Healthcare Facilities industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Medical&Biological Laboratories should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Healthcare Facilities industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Medical&Biological Laboratories 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 Healthcare Facilities industry.
High dependence on Medical&Biological Laboratories ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Medical&Biological Laboratories still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Healthcare Facilities industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Medical&Biological Laboratories has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Medical&Biological Laboratories Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Medical&Biological Laboratories are -
Manufacturing automation
– Medical&Biological Laboratories can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Healthcare Facilities sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Medical&Biological Laboratories can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Medical&Biological Laboratories 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 Medical&Biological Laboratories to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– Medical&Biological Laboratories can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Healthcare Facilities 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Medical&Biological Laboratories has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Healthcare Facilities industry. This can help Medical&Biological Laboratories to build a more holistic ecosystem for Medical&Biological Laboratories products in the Healthcare Facilities industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Medical&Biological Laboratories 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Medical&Biological Laboratories 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Healthcare Facilities industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Medical&Biological Laboratories in the Healthcare Facilities industry. Now Medical&Biological Laboratories can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Medical&Biological Laboratories can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Medical&Biological Laboratories operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Healthcare Facilities sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Medical&Biological Laboratories has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Healthcare Facilities sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Medical&Biological Laboratories to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Medical&Biological Laboratories to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– Medical&Biological Laboratories can develop new processes and procedures in Healthcare Facilities 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Medical&Biological Laboratories is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Medical&Biological Laboratories can utilize new technology in the field of Healthcare Facilities industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Healthcare Facilities industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Medical&Biological Laboratories can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Medical&Biological Laboratories External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Medical&Biological Laboratories are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Healthcare Facilities industry are lowering. It can presents Medical&Biological Laboratories with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Healthcare Facilities sector.
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 Medical&Biological Laboratories business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Healthcare Facilities industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Medical&Biological Laboratories can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Medical&Biological Laboratories 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.
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 Medical&Biological Laboratories in the Healthcare Facilities sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Medical&Biological Laboratories may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Healthcare Facilities sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Medical&Biological Laboratories 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.
Increasing wage structure of Medical&Biological Laboratories
– 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 Medical&Biological Laboratories.
Environmental challenges
– Medical&Biological Laboratories 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. Medical&Biological Laboratories can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Healthcare Facilities industry.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Medical&Biological Laboratories 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 Healthcare Facilities industry and other sectors.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Medical&Biological Laboratories in Healthcare Facilities industry. The Healthcare Facilities 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Medical&Biological Laboratories Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Medical&Biological Laboratories 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 Medical&Biological Laboratories 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 Medical&Biological Laboratories 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 Medical&Biological Laboratories 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 Medical&Biological Laboratories needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
