Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , HTG Molecular Diagnostics is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of HTG Molecular Diagnostics
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that HTG Molecular Diagnostics can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the HTG Molecular Diagnostics, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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 HTG Molecular Diagnostics can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of HTG Molecular Diagnostics
2. Improving business portfolio management of HTG Molecular Diagnostics
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Scientific & Technical Instr. sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of HTG Molecular Diagnostics
Strengths of HTG Molecular Diagnostics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of HTG Molecular Diagnostics are -
Digital Transformation in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For HTG Molecular Diagnostics digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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.
Training and development
– HTG Molecular Diagnostics has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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.
Analytics focus
– HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry
– HTG Molecular Diagnostics is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– HTG Molecular Diagnostics is one of the leading players in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High brand equity
– HTG Molecular Diagnostics has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled HTG Molecular Diagnostics to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of HTG Molecular Diagnostics in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– HTG Molecular Diagnostics has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of HTG Molecular Diagnostics have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– HTG Molecular Diagnostics is present in almost all the verticals within the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. This has provided HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– HTG Molecular Diagnostics has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – HTG Molecular Diagnostics staying ahead in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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.
Learning organization
- HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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 HTG Molecular Diagnostics is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at HTG Molecular Diagnostics emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of HTG Molecular Diagnostics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of HTG Molecular Diagnostics are -
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 HTG Molecular Diagnostics supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, HTG Molecular Diagnostics is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left HTG Molecular Diagnostics vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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, HTG Molecular Diagnostics is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help HTG Molecular Diagnostics to provide better information regarding Scientific & Technical Instr. products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, HTG Molecular Diagnostics has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry over the last five years. HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though HTG Molecular Diagnostics has some of the most successful models in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. HTG Molecular Diagnostics should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of HTG Molecular Diagnostics products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, HTG Molecular Diagnostics needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of HTG Molecular Diagnostics is just above the Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As HTG Molecular Diagnostics is one of the leading players in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at HTG Molecular Diagnostics, in the dynamic environment of Scientific & Technical Instr. industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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, HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry using digital technology.
HTG Molecular Diagnostics Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of HTG Molecular Diagnostics are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for HTG Molecular Diagnostics in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Scientific & Technical Instr. 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 HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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 HTG Molecular Diagnostics to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– HTG Molecular Diagnostics has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Scientific & Technical Instr. sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled HTG Molecular Diagnostics to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help HTG Molecular Diagnostics to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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.
Buying journey improvements
– HTG Molecular Diagnostics can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of HTG Molecular Diagnostics has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. This can help HTG Molecular Diagnostics to build a more holistic ecosystem for HTG Molecular Diagnostics products in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for HTG Molecular Diagnostics in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. Now HTG Molecular Diagnostics can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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 HTG Molecular Diagnostics to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. HTG Molecular Diagnostics can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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. HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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.
Threats HTG Molecular Diagnostics External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of HTG Molecular Diagnostics are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that HTG Molecular Diagnostics is facing in Scientific & Technical Instr. sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for HTG Molecular Diagnostics in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. The Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
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.
Environmental challenges
– HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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. HTG Molecular Diagnostics can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry.
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 HTG Molecular Diagnostics in the Scientific & Technical Instr. sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. 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 HTG Molecular Diagnostics.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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 wage structure of HTG Molecular Diagnostics
– 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 HTG Molecular Diagnostics.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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 HTG Molecular Diagnostics prominent markets.
Consumer confidence and its impact on HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry and other sectors.
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 HTG Molecular Diagnostics business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of HTG Molecular Diagnostics Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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 HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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 HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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 HTG Molecular Diagnostics 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 HTG Molecular Diagnostics needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
