Spineguard (ALSGD) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Medical Equipment & Supplies
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Spineguard (France)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Spineguard is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Spineguard can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Spineguard, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Spineguard 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 Spineguard can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Spineguard
2. Improving business portfolio management of Spineguard
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 Spineguard
Strengths of Spineguard | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Spineguard are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Spineguard has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Spineguard 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 Spineguard in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Spineguard has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Spineguard to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Spineguard 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 Spineguard have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– Spineguard is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Medical Equipment & Supplies
– Spineguard is one of the leading players in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry in France. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry in France but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Spineguard in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Spineguard is present in almost all the verticals within the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This has provided Spineguard 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Spineguard 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.
Learning organization
- Spineguard 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 Spineguard is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Spineguard emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Spineguard 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Spineguard has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Spineguard 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Spineguard in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Spineguard 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 Spineguard | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Spineguard are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Spineguard 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 Spineguard can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Spineguard is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Spineguard is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry, but Spineguard needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Spineguard to focus more on services in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Spineguard 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Spineguard 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Spineguard, in the dynamic environment of Medical Equipment & Supplies industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Spineguard has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Spineguard 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 Spineguard lucrative customers.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Spineguard is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Spineguard 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry, Spineguard 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Spineguard 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. Spineguard should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Need for greater diversity
– Spineguard 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Spineguard 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.
Spineguard Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Spineguard are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Spineguard 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 Spineguard to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Spineguard 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 Spineguard 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 Spineguard to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Spineguard in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. Now Spineguard can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Spineguard can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Spineguard 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 Medical Equipment & Supplies industry.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Spineguard can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Spineguard operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector.
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. Spineguard can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Spineguard 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Spineguard 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Spineguard 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Spineguard 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Spineguard 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.
Threats Spineguard External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Spineguard 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. Spineguard 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Spineguard 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 Spineguard 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Medical Equipment & Supplies industry are lowering. It can presents Spineguard 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.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Spineguard 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Spineguard 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 Spineguard prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Spineguard
– 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 Spineguard.
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 Spineguard business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Spineguard in the Medical Equipment & Supplies sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Spineguard needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Spineguard.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Spineguard is facing in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Spineguard Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Spineguard 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 Spineguard 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 Spineguard 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 Spineguard 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 Spineguard needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.