Diagnostic Medical (DMSP) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Medical Equipment & Supplies
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Diagnostic Medical (France)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Diagnostic Medical is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
there is backlash against globalization, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Diagnostic Medical
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Diagnostic Medical can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Diagnostic Medical, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Diagnostic Medical 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 Diagnostic Medical can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Diagnostic Medical
2. Improving business portfolio management of Diagnostic Medical
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in France
4. Making a Medical Equipment & Supplies sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Diagnostic Medical
Strengths of Diagnostic Medical | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Diagnostic Medical are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Diagnostic Medical has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Diagnostic Medical 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Diagnostic Medical is one of the leading players in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry in France. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in France. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Diagnostic Medical 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Diagnostic Medical in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Strong track record of project management in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– Diagnostic Medical is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Diagnostic Medical 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 Diagnostic Medical have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Diagnostic Medical 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 France 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Diagnostic Medical is one of the most innovative firm in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector.
Learning organization
- Diagnostic Medical 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 Diagnostic Medical is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Diagnostic Medical emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Diagnostic Medical in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Diagnostic Medical has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Diagnostic Medical to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Diagnostic Medical 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Diagnostic Medical 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.
Weaknesses of Diagnostic Medical | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Diagnostic Medical are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in France, Diagnostic Medical 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Diagnostic Medical is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry, but Diagnostic Medical needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Diagnostic Medical to focus more on services in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Diagnostic Medical 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. Diagnostic Medical 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, Diagnostic Medical 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Diagnostic Medical, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Medical Equipment & Supplies 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Diagnostic Medical 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.
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 Diagnostic Medical supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Diagnostic Medical is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Diagnostic Medical vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Diagnostic Medical 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Diagnostic Medical 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.
Skills based hiring in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Diagnostic Medical 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Diagnostic Medical 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. Diagnostic Medical should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Diagnostic Medical Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Diagnostic Medical are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Diagnostic Medical 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Diagnostic Medical is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Diagnostic Medical 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.
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. Diagnostic Medical can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Diagnostic Medical 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Diagnostic Medical 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 Diagnostic Medical to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Diagnostic Medical to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Diagnostic Medical can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Diagnostic Medical 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Diagnostic Medical 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 Diagnostic Medical to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Diagnostic Medical 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
– Diagnostic Medical 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Diagnostic Medical 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Diagnostic Medical 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.
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 Diagnostic Medical in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. Now Diagnostic Medical can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Diagnostic Medical External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Diagnostic Medical are -
Regulatory challenges
– Diagnostic Medical 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.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Diagnostic Medical 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. Diagnostic Medical can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Diagnostic Medical 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Medical Equipment & Supplies industry are lowering. It can presents Diagnostic Medical 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
– Diagnostic Medical 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.
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. Diagnostic Medical 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 wage structure of Diagnostic Medical
– 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 Diagnostic Medical.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Diagnostic Medical 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Diagnostic Medical is facing in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Diagnostic Medical needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Diagnostic Medical 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 Diagnostic Medical prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Diagnostic Medical Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Diagnostic Medical 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 Diagnostic Medical 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 Diagnostic Medical 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 Diagnostic Medical 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 Diagnostic Medical needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.