Natus (BABY) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Medical Equipment & Supplies
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Natus (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Natus is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Natus can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Natus, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Natus 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 Natus can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Natus
2. Improving business portfolio management of Natus
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Medical Equipment & Supplies sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Natus
Strengths of Natus | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Natus are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Natus is present in almost all the verticals within the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This has provided Natus 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.
Ability to lead change in Medical Equipment & Supplies
– Natus is one of the leading players in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Natus in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– Natus 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 United States 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.
Organizational Resilience of Natus
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Natus does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Natus 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 Natus is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Natus emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Natus 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 Natus have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Natus is one of the most innovative firm in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– Natus is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Natus 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Natus has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Natus 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Natus has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Natus 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– Natus has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Natus to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Natus to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Natus | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Natus are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Natus 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 United States, Natus 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Natus 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Natus, 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.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Natus supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Natus is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Natus vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ less understanding of Natus strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Natus 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Natus 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, Natus 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. Natus 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Natus, in the dynamic environment of Medical Equipment & Supplies industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Natus has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Natus 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Natus is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry, but Natus needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Natus to focus more on services in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Natus Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Natus are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Natus is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Natus 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Natus 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Natus 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Natus 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 Natus to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Natus to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Natus can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Natus can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Natus 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 Natus to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Natus 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 Natus to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Natus has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This can help Natus to build a more holistic ecosystem for Natus products in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Natus 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. Natus 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Natus 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Natus can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Natus operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Natus to increase its market reach. Natus 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.
Threats Natus External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Natus 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 Natus business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Natus 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. Natus 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
– Natus 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
– Natus 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 wage structure of Natus
– 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 Natus.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Natus has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Natus 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.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Natus 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.
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 Natus.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Natus 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 Natus in the Medical Equipment & Supplies sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Natus 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 Natus prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Natus 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Natus Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Natus 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 Natus 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 Natus 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 Natus 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 Natus needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.