Paragon Care Ltd (PGC) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Medical Equipment & Supplies
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Paragon Care Ltd (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Paragon Care Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Paragon Care Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Paragon Care Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Paragon Care Ltd 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 Paragon Care Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Paragon Care Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Paragon Care Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Medical Equipment & Supplies sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Paragon Care Ltd
Strengths of Paragon Care Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Paragon Care Ltd are -
Analytics focus
– Paragon Care Ltd 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 Australia 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 Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– Paragon Care Ltd 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 brand equity
– Paragon Care Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Paragon Care Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Paragon Care Ltd 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 Paragon Care Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Paragon Care Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Paragon Care Ltd is one of the leading players in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry in Australia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Australia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Paragon Care Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Paragon Care Ltd 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Paragon Care Ltd in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Paragon Care Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Paragon Care Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Paragon Care Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This has provided Paragon Care Ltd 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.
Digital Transformation in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Paragon Care Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Paragon Care Ltd 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Paragon Care Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Paragon Care Ltd 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Paragon Care Ltd 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.
Weaknesses of Paragon Care Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Paragon Care Ltd are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Paragon Care Ltd 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 Paragon Care Ltd lucrative customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Paragon Care Ltd 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Paragon Care Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Paragon Care Ltd 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Paragon Care Ltd 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Paragon Care Ltd 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 Paragon Care Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Paragon Care Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Paragon Care Ltd 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Paragon Care Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Medical Equipment & Supplies industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Paragon Care Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Paragon Care Ltd 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Paragon Care Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Paragon Care Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Paragon Care Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry, Paragon Care Ltd 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.
Paragon Care Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Paragon Care Ltd are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Paragon Care Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Paragon Care Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Paragon Care Ltd 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Paragon Care Ltd 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
– Paragon Care Ltd 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Paragon Care Ltd 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 Paragon Care Ltd 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 Paragon Care Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This can help Paragon Care Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Paragon Care Ltd products in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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. Paragon Care Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Paragon Care Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Paragon Care Ltd to increase its market reach. Paragon Care Ltd 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Paragon Care Ltd 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 Paragon Care Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Paragon Care Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Paragon Care Ltd 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. Paragon Care Ltd 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Paragon Care Ltd in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. Now Paragon Care Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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 Paragon Care Ltd 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 Paragon Care Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Paragon Care Ltd are -
Environmental challenges
– Paragon Care Ltd 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. Paragon Care Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors 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. Paragon Care Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Paragon Care Ltd is facing in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Paragon Care Ltd 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 Paragon Care Ltd in the Medical Equipment & Supplies sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Paragon Care Ltd.
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.
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 Paragon Care Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Paragon Care Ltd will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Paragon Care Ltd 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.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Medical Equipment & Supplies industry are lowering. It can presents Paragon Care Ltd 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.
Increasing wage structure of Paragon Care Ltd
– 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 Paragon Care Ltd.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Paragon Care Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Paragon Care Ltd 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 Paragon Care Ltd 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 Paragon Care Ltd 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 Paragon Care Ltd 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 Paragon Care Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
