Advanced Health (AVLJ) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Medical Equipment & Supplies
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Advanced Health (South Africa)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Advanced Health is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, increasing commodity prices,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Advanced Health can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Advanced Health, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Advanced Health 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 Advanced Health can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Advanced Health
2. Improving business portfolio management of Advanced Health
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Africa
4. Making a Medical Equipment & Supplies sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Advanced Health
Strengths of Advanced Health | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Advanced Health are -
Strong track record of project management in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– Advanced Health is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Advanced Health in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Advanced Health has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Advanced Health to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Advanced Health in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Advanced Health
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Advanced Health does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Advanced Health is one of the most innovative firm in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector.
High brand equity
– Advanced Health has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Advanced Health to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– Advanced Health has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Advanced Health to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Advanced Health to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Advanced Health 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 Advanced Health is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Advanced Health emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Advanced Health 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 Advanced Health have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Advanced Health has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Advanced Health 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Advanced Health has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Advanced Health staying ahead in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Medical Equipment & Supplies
– Advanced Health is one of the leading players in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry in South Africa. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry in South Africa but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Advanced Health in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Advanced Health | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Advanced Health are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Advanced Health is one of the leading players in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry in last five years.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Advanced Health 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of South Africa, Advanced Health needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Advanced Health 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. Advanced Health 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry, Advanced Health 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 Advanced Health ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Advanced Health still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Advanced Health has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Advanced Health needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Advanced Health can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Advanced Health is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Advanced Health is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Advanced Health 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Advanced Health, in the dynamic environment of Medical Equipment & Supplies industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Advanced Health has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Advanced Health products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Advanced Health needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Advanced Health is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry, but Advanced Health needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Advanced Health to focus more on services in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Advanced Health Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Advanced Health are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Advanced Health has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Advanced Health to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Advanced Health to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Manufacturing automation
– Advanced Health 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Advanced Health to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Developing new processes and practices
– Advanced Health can develop new processes and procedures in Medical Equipment & Supplies 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Advanced Health can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Advanced Health operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Advanced Health 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Advanced Health 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Advanced Health to increase its market reach. Advanced Health 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Advanced Health 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 Medical Equipment & Supplies industry.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Advanced Health 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 Advanced Health to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Advanced Health 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 Advanced Health to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Advanced Health can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Advanced Health can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Advanced Health 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.
Threats Advanced Health External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Advanced Health are -
Increasing wage structure of Advanced Health
– 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 Advanced Health.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Advanced Health can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Advanced Health 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. Advanced Health can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Medical Equipment & Supplies industry are lowering. It can presents Advanced Health 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Advanced Health is facing in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Advanced Health in the Medical Equipment & Supplies sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Advanced Health 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
– Advanced Health 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Advanced Health 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, Advanced Health 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 Advanced Health prominent markets.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Advanced Health has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Advanced Health needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Medical Equipment & Supplies 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.
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.
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 Advanced Health business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Advanced Health Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Advanced Health 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 Advanced Health 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 Advanced Health 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 Advanced Health 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 Advanced Health needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
