Metabiomed (59210) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Medical Equipment & Supplies
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Metabiomed (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Metabiomed is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Metabiomed can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Metabiomed, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Metabiomed 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 Metabiomed can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Metabiomed
2. Improving business portfolio management of Metabiomed
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Medical Equipment & Supplies sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Metabiomed
Strengths of Metabiomed | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Metabiomed are -
Ability to lead change in Medical Equipment & Supplies
– Metabiomed is one of the leading players in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry in South Korea. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry in South Korea but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Metabiomed in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Metabiomed 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.
Learning organization
- Metabiomed 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 Metabiomed is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Metabiomed emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Metabiomed has one of the best training and development program in Healthcare 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Metabiomed 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 Metabiomed have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Metabiomed in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Metabiomed has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Metabiomed to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– Metabiomed 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 Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. The technology infrastructure of South Korea 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Metabiomed is one of the leading players in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry in South Korea. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in South Korea. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Diverse revenue streams
– Metabiomed is present in almost all the verticals within the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This has provided Metabiomed 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.
Organizational Resilience of Metabiomed
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Metabiomed 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 Metabiomed 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 brand equity
– Metabiomed has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Metabiomed to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of Metabiomed | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Metabiomed are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in South Korea, Metabiomed 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Metabiomed strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Metabiomed 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Metabiomed has some of the most successful models in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Metabiomed should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Need for greater diversity
– Metabiomed 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Metabiomed 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. Metabiomed 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, Metabiomed 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.
Skills based hiring in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Metabiomed 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Metabiomed 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 Metabiomed lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Metabiomed, in the dynamic environment of Medical Equipment & Supplies industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Metabiomed has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on Metabiomed ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Metabiomed 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 Metabiomed has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Metabiomed, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Metabiomed Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Metabiomed are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Metabiomed 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.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Metabiomed can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Metabiomed in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. Now Metabiomed can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Metabiomed has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This can help Metabiomed to build a more holistic ecosystem for Metabiomed products in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Metabiomed 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Metabiomed to increase its market reach. Metabiomed 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.
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 Metabiomed 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Metabiomed 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Metabiomed 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Metabiomed 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Metabiomed 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Metabiomed is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Metabiomed 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Metabiomed can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Metabiomed operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector.
Threats Metabiomed External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Metabiomed are -
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Metabiomed.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Metabiomed 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Metabiomed is facing in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Metabiomed 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Metabiomed 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 Metabiomed prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Metabiomed may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Medical Equipment & Supplies sector.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Metabiomed 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Metabiomed 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 Medical Equipment & Supplies industry and other sectors.
Environmental challenges
– Metabiomed 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. Metabiomed can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry.
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. Metabiomed needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Medical Equipment & Supplies 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 Metabiomed business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Metabiomed has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Metabiomed 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Metabiomed 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Metabiomed Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Metabiomed 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 Metabiomed 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 Metabiomed 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 Metabiomed 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 Metabiomed needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.