Blue Sail Medical A (2382) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Medical Equipment & Supplies
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Blue Sail Medical A (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Blue Sail Medical A 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, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices,
geopolitical disruptions, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Blue Sail Medical A
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Blue Sail Medical A can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Blue Sail Medical A, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Blue Sail Medical A 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 Blue Sail Medical A can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Blue Sail Medical A
2. Improving business portfolio management of Blue Sail Medical A
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Medical Equipment & Supplies sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Blue Sail Medical A
Strengths of Blue Sail Medical A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Blue Sail Medical A are -
Training and development
– Blue Sail Medical A 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.
Ability to lead change in Medical Equipment & Supplies
– Blue Sail Medical A is one of the leading players in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Blue Sail Medical A in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Blue Sail Medical A in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Blue Sail Medical A has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Blue Sail Medical A to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Blue Sail Medical A is one of the most innovative firm in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Blue Sail Medical A has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Blue Sail Medical A 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Blue Sail Medical A has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Blue Sail Medical A 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Blue Sail Medical A 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Blue Sail Medical A is present in almost all the verticals within the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This has provided Blue Sail Medical A 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Blue Sail Medical A 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Blue Sail Medical A 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 Blue Sail Medical A have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Blue Sail Medical A in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Blue Sail Medical A has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Blue Sail Medical A to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of Blue Sail Medical A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Blue Sail Medical A are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Blue Sail Medical A, in the dynamic environment of Medical Equipment & Supplies industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Blue Sail Medical A has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry, Blue Sail Medical A 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Blue Sail Medical A has high operating costs in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Blue Sail Medical A lucrative customers.
Skills based hiring in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Blue Sail Medical A 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Blue Sail Medical A is just above the Medical Equipment & Supplies 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Blue Sail Medical A needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Blue Sail Medical A is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry, but Blue Sail Medical A needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Blue Sail Medical A to focus more on services in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on Blue Sail Medical A ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Blue Sail Medical A 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 Blue Sail Medical A has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Blue Sail Medical A supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Blue Sail Medical A is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Blue Sail Medical A vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Blue Sail Medical A 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. Blue Sail Medical A 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 Blue Sail Medical A 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. Blue Sail Medical A should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Blue Sail Medical A Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Blue Sail Medical A are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Blue Sail Medical A 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.
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. Blue Sail Medical A 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. Blue Sail Medical A 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Blue Sail Medical A is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Blue Sail Medical A 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Blue Sail Medical A 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 Blue Sail Medical A to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Blue Sail Medical A 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.
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. Blue Sail Medical A can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Blue Sail Medical A 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 Blue Sail Medical A to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Blue Sail Medical A to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Blue Sail Medical A can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Blue Sail Medical A to increase its market reach. Blue Sail Medical A 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Blue Sail Medical A 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Blue Sail Medical A 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Blue Sail Medical A 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.
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 Blue Sail Medical A 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.
Threats Blue Sail Medical A External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Blue Sail Medical A are -
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. Blue Sail Medical A 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Blue Sail Medical A 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Blue Sail Medical A 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Blue Sail Medical A 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.
Environmental challenges
– Blue Sail Medical A 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. Blue Sail Medical A can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Blue Sail Medical A 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.
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. Blue Sail Medical A needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Medical Equipment & Supplies industry are lowering. It can presents Blue Sail Medical A 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.
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 Blue Sail Medical A business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Blue Sail Medical A 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.
Increasing wage structure of Blue Sail Medical A
– 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 Blue Sail Medical A.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Blue Sail Medical A 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.
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 Blue Sail Medical A in the Medical Equipment & Supplies sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Blue Sail Medical A Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Blue Sail Medical A 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 Blue Sail Medical A 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 Blue Sail Medical A 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 Blue Sail Medical A 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 Blue Sail Medical A needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.