SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Intuitive Surgical (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Intuitive Surgical is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Intuitive Surgical
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Intuitive Surgical can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Intuitive Surgical, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Intuitive Surgical 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 Intuitive Surgical can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Intuitive Surgical
2. Improving business portfolio management of Intuitive Surgical
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 Intuitive Surgical
Strengths of Intuitive Surgical | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Intuitive Surgical are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– Intuitive Surgical has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Intuitive Surgical to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Intuitive Surgical to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– Intuitive Surgical 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 Intuitive Surgical 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Intuitive Surgical in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Intuitive Surgical is one of the leading players in the Medical Equipment & Supplies 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.
Learning organization
- Intuitive Surgical 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 Intuitive Surgical is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Intuitive Surgical emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Intuitive Surgical 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
– Intuitive Surgical has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Intuitive Surgical to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Intuitive Surgical digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Intuitive Surgical 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.
Ability to lead change in Medical Equipment & Supplies
– Intuitive Surgical 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 Intuitive Surgical in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Intuitive Surgical is present in almost all the verticals within the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This has provided Intuitive Surgical 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.
Analytics focus
– Intuitive Surgical 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.
Weaknesses of Intuitive Surgical | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Intuitive Surgical are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Intuitive Surgical 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 Intuitive Surgical products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Intuitive Surgical needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Intuitive Surgical 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. Intuitive Surgical 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, Intuitive Surgical 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Intuitive Surgical is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Intuitive Surgical 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Intuitive Surgical strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Intuitive Surgical 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Intuitive Surgical has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry using digital technology.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Intuitive Surgical needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Intuitive Surgical needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Intuitive Surgical can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Intuitive Surgical is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Intuitive Surgical 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.
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 Intuitive Surgical supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Intuitive Surgical is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Intuitive Surgical vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Intuitive Surgical Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Intuitive Surgical are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Intuitive Surgical 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 Intuitive Surgical 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, Intuitive Surgical 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 Intuitive Surgical to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Intuitive Surgical 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Intuitive Surgical 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Intuitive Surgical has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This can help Intuitive Surgical to build a more holistic ecosystem for Intuitive Surgical products in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Intuitive Surgical is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Intuitive Surgical 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Intuitive Surgical 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.
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. Intuitive Surgical can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Intuitive Surgical 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Intuitive Surgical can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Intuitive Surgical operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Intuitive Surgical 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Intuitive Surgical 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Intuitive Surgical 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 Intuitive Surgical to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Intuitive Surgical to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Intuitive Surgical External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Intuitive Surgical are -
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.
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. Intuitive Surgical needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Intuitive Surgical can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Intuitive Surgical has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Intuitive Surgical 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Intuitive Surgical 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Medical Equipment & Supplies industry are lowering. It can presents Intuitive Surgical with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Medical Equipment & Supplies sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Intuitive Surgical 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Intuitive Surgical 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.
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. Intuitive Surgical 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 Intuitive Surgical 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.
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 Intuitive Surgical 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, Intuitive Surgical 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 Intuitive Surgical prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Intuitive Surgical 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 Intuitive Surgical Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Intuitive Surgical 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 Intuitive Surgical 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 Intuitive Surgical 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 Intuitive Surgical 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 Intuitive Surgical needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
