Tandem Diabetes Care (0M0F) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Medical Equipment & Supplies
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Tandem Diabetes Care (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Tandem Diabetes Care is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices,
geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Tandem Diabetes Care
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Tandem Diabetes Care can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Tandem Diabetes Care, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Tandem Diabetes Care 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 Tandem Diabetes Care can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Tandem Diabetes Care
2. Improving business portfolio management of Tandem Diabetes Care
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Medical Equipment & Supplies sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Tandem Diabetes Care
Strengths of Tandem Diabetes Care | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Tandem Diabetes Care are -
Digital Transformation in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Tandem Diabetes Care digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Tandem Diabetes Care 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Tandem Diabetes Care has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Tandem Diabetes Care 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Tandem Diabetes Care is one of the most innovative firm in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– Tandem Diabetes Care is present in almost all the verticals within the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This has provided Tandem Diabetes Care 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Tandem Diabetes Care comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Medical Equipment & Supplies 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Tandem Diabetes Care 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
– Tandem Diabetes Care has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Tandem Diabetes Care have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Medical Equipment & Supplies
– Tandem Diabetes Care is one of the leading players in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Tandem Diabetes Care in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Tandem Diabetes Care is one of the leading players in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry in United Kingdom. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United Kingdom. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Learning organization
- Tandem Diabetes Care 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 Tandem Diabetes Care is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Tandem Diabetes Care emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Tandem Diabetes Care 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.
Organizational Resilience of Tandem Diabetes Care
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Tandem Diabetes Care does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of Tandem Diabetes Care | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Tandem Diabetes Care are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Tandem Diabetes Care 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 Medical Equipment & Supplies industry.
Need for greater diversity
– Tandem Diabetes Care 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Tandem Diabetes Care is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Tandem Diabetes Care to provide better information regarding Medical Equipment & Supplies products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Tandem Diabetes Care products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Tandem Diabetes Care needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ less understanding of Tandem Diabetes Care strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Tandem Diabetes Care 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Tandem Diabetes Care has high operating costs in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Tandem Diabetes Care lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Tandem Diabetes Care is just above the Medical Equipment & Supplies 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Tandem Diabetes Care 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 Medical Equipment & Supplies industry using digital technology.
Skills based hiring in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Tandem Diabetes Care 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Tandem Diabetes Care has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry over the last five years. Tandem Diabetes Care 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Tandem Diabetes Care is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry, but Tandem Diabetes Care needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Tandem Diabetes Care to focus more on services in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Tandem Diabetes Care Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Tandem Diabetes Care are -
Loyalty marketing
– Tandem Diabetes Care 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Tandem Diabetes Care 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 Tandem Diabetes Care to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Tandem Diabetes Care is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Tandem Diabetes Care can utilize new technology in the field of Medical Equipment & Supplies industry 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 Tandem Diabetes Care to increase its market reach. Tandem Diabetes Care 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 Tandem Diabetes Care 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Tandem Diabetes Care can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Medical Equipment & Supplies 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Tandem Diabetes Care 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Tandem Diabetes Care can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Medical Equipment & Supplies 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Tandem Diabetes Care can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Tandem Diabetes Care operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Tandem Diabetes Care can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Tandem Diabetes Care in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Medical Equipment & Supplies 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 Tandem Diabetes Care 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Tandem Diabetes Care 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 Tandem Diabetes Care to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Tandem Diabetes Care External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Tandem Diabetes Care are -
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 Tandem Diabetes Care in the Medical Equipment & Supplies sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Tandem Diabetes Care can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Tandem Diabetes Care 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 Medical Equipment & Supplies industry regulations.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Medical Equipment & Supplies industry are lowering. It can presents Tandem Diabetes Care with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Medical Equipment & Supplies 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 Tandem Diabetes Care business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Tandem Diabetes Care 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Tandem Diabetes Care 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 Tandem Diabetes Care prominent markets.
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. Tandem Diabetes Care 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.
Environmental challenges
– Tandem Diabetes Care 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. Tandem Diabetes Care can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Medical Equipment & Supplies 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Tandem Diabetes Care in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. The Medical Equipment & Supplies 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 Tandem Diabetes Care is facing in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Tandem Diabetes Care
– 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 Tandem Diabetes Care.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Tandem Diabetes Care Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Tandem Diabetes Care 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 Tandem Diabetes Care 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 Tandem Diabetes Care 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 Tandem Diabetes Care 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 Tandem Diabetes Care needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.