SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Logos Biosystems (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Logos Biosystems is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Logos Biosystems can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Logos Biosystems, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Logos Biosystems 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 Logos Biosystems can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Logos Biosystems
2. Improving business portfolio management of Logos Biosystems
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 Logos Biosystems
Strengths of Logos Biosystems | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Logos Biosystems are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Logos Biosystems 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 Logos Biosystems have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Medical Equipment & Supplies
– Logos Biosystems 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 Logos Biosystems in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Logos Biosystems
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Logos Biosystems does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Logos Biosystems 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Logos Biosystems has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Logos Biosystems 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– Logos Biosystems is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Logos Biosystems in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Logos Biosystems has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Logos Biosystems 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Logos Biosystems 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.
Training and development
– Logos Biosystems 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Logos Biosystems 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.
Learning organization
- Logos Biosystems 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 Logos Biosystems is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Logos Biosystems emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Logos Biosystems | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Logos Biosystems are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Logos Biosystems has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in South Korea, Logos Biosystems 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Logos Biosystems, in the dynamic environment of Medical Equipment & Supplies industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Logos Biosystems has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Logos Biosystems has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Logos Biosystems 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. Logos Biosystems should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Logos Biosystems 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Logos Biosystems products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Logos Biosystems needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Logos Biosystems, 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.
Skills based hiring in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Logos Biosystems 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 dependence on Logos Biosystems ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Logos Biosystems 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 Logos Biosystems has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Logos Biosystems is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Logos Biosystems 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.
Logos Biosystems Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Logos Biosystems are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Logos Biosystems 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Logos Biosystems to increase its market reach. Logos Biosystems 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Logos Biosystems 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.
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 Logos Biosystems 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.
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. Logos Biosystems 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. Logos Biosystems 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Logos Biosystems 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 Logos Biosystems to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Logos Biosystems to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Logos Biosystems 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Logos Biosystems can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Logos Biosystems 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Logos Biosystems 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 Logos Biosystems 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 Logos Biosystems 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 Logos Biosystems to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Logos Biosystems 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Logos Biosystems has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This can help Logos Biosystems to build a more holistic ecosystem for Logos Biosystems products in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Logos Biosystems External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Logos Biosystems are -
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 Logos Biosystems business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Logos Biosystems 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. Logos Biosystems can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Logos Biosystems 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Logos Biosystems 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.
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. Logos Biosystems 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.
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. Logos Biosystems needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Logos Biosystems in the Medical Equipment & Supplies sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Logos Biosystems
– 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 Logos Biosystems.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Logos Biosystems is facing in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Logos Biosystems 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Logos Biosystems 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.
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 Logos Biosystems.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Logos Biosystems Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Logos Biosystems 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 Logos Biosystems 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 Logos Biosystems 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 Logos Biosystems 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 Logos Biosystems needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.