Pacific Smiles Group Ltd (PSQ) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Healthcare Facilities
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Pacific Smiles Group Ltd (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Pacific Smiles Group Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Pacific Smiles Group Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Pacific Smiles Group Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Pacific Smiles Group Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Pacific Smiles Group 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 Pacific Smiles Group Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Pacific Smiles Group Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Pacific Smiles Group Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Healthcare Facilities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Pacific Smiles Group Ltd
Strengths of Pacific Smiles Group Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Pacific Smiles Group Ltd are -
Digital Transformation in Healthcare Facilities industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Pacific Smiles Group Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Pacific Smiles Group 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Pacific Smiles Group Ltd is one of the leading players in the Healthcare Facilities 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Pacific Smiles Group Ltd in Healthcare Facilities industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Pacific Smiles Group Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Healthcare Facilities 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Pacific Smiles Group Ltd 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Pacific Smiles Group Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Healthcare Facilities industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Pacific Smiles Group Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Pacific Smiles Group 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 Healthcare Facilities 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Pacific Smiles Group 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Healthcare Facilities industry
– Pacific Smiles Group 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Pacific Smiles Group Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Pacific Smiles Group Ltd staying ahead in the Healthcare Facilities industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– Pacific Smiles Group Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Healthcare Facilities industry. This has provided Pacific Smiles Group 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Pacific Smiles Group Ltd in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Pacific Smiles Group Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Pacific Smiles Group Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Pacific Smiles Group Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Pacific Smiles Group Ltd are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Pacific Smiles Group Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Healthcare Facilities industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Healthcare Facilities industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Pacific Smiles Group 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 Healthcare Facilities industry.
Need for greater diversity
– Pacific Smiles Group Ltd 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Pacific Smiles Group Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Healthcare Facilities industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Pacific Smiles Group Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Pacific Smiles Group Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Pacific Smiles Group Ltd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Healthcare Facilities industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Healthcare Facilities industry, Pacific Smiles Group 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Pacific Smiles Group Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Healthcare Facilities industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Pacific Smiles Group Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Pacific Smiles Group Ltd is one of the leading players in the Healthcare Facilities industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Healthcare Facilities industry in last five years.
Skills based hiring in Healthcare Facilities industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Pacific Smiles Group 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Pacific Smiles Group 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.
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 Pacific Smiles Group Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Pacific Smiles Group Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Pacific Smiles Group Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Pacific Smiles Group Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Pacific Smiles Group Ltd are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Pacific Smiles Group Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Pacific Smiles Group Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Healthcare Facilities industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Pacific Smiles Group Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Healthcare Facilities sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Pacific Smiles Group Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Pacific Smiles Group Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Pacific Smiles Group Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Healthcare Facilities 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.
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. Pacific Smiles Group Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Pacific Smiles Group Ltd 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 Pacific Smiles Group Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Pacific Smiles Group Ltd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Healthcare Facilities industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Pacific Smiles Group Ltd can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Healthcare Facilities industry.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Pacific Smiles Group Ltd 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Healthcare Facilities industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Pacific Smiles Group Ltd in the Healthcare Facilities industry. Now Pacific Smiles Group Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Pacific Smiles Group Ltd 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Pacific Smiles Group 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 Pacific Smiles Group 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Pacific Smiles Group Ltd to increase its market reach. Pacific Smiles Group 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Pacific Smiles Group Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Pacific Smiles Group Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Pacific Smiles Group Ltd are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Pacific Smiles Group 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Pacific Smiles Group Ltd in Healthcare Facilities industry. The Healthcare Facilities 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.
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 Pacific Smiles Group 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.
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 Healthcare Facilities industry are lowering. It can presents Pacific Smiles Group Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Healthcare Facilities sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Pacific Smiles Group Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Healthcare Facilities industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Pacific Smiles Group Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Healthcare Facilities 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, Pacific Smiles Group Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Healthcare Facilities sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Healthcare Facilities industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Pacific Smiles Group Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Pacific Smiles Group 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 Pacific Smiles Group Ltd.
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 Pacific Smiles Group Ltd in the Healthcare Facilities sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Pacific Smiles Group 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Pacific Smiles Group Ltd 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 Pacific Smiles Group Ltd prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Pacific Smiles Group Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Pacific Smiles Group 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 Pacific Smiles Group 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 Pacific Smiles Group 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 Pacific Smiles Group 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 Pacific Smiles Group Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.