SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for PW Medtech (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , PW Medtech is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that PW Medtech can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the PW Medtech, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which PW Medtech 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 PW Medtech can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of PW Medtech
2. Improving business portfolio management of PW Medtech
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Medical Equipment & Supplies sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of PW Medtech
Strengths of PW Medtech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of PW Medtech are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– PW Medtech has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. PW Medtech 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.
Innovation driven organization
– PW Medtech is one of the most innovative firm in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the PW Medtech 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.
Digital Transformation in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For PW Medtech digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. PW Medtech 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– PW Medtech 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 PW Medtech have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– PW Medtech has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – PW Medtech 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– PW Medtech is present in almost all the verticals within the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This has provided PW Medtech 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– PW Medtech is one of the leading players in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry in Hong Kong. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Hong Kong. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Strong track record of project management in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– PW Medtech is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of PW Medtech in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. PW Medtech has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps PW Medtech to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Medical Equipment & Supplies
– PW Medtech is one of the leading players in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled PW Medtech in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- PW Medtech 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 PW Medtech is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at PW Medtech emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of PW Medtech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of PW Medtech are -
Need for greater diversity
– PW Medtech 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, PW Medtech 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 PW Medtech lucrative customers.
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 PW Medtech supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, PW Medtech is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left PW Medtech vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, PW Medtech 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. PW Medtech 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.
Skills based hiring in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at PW Medtech 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, PW Medtech 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 PW Medtech is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry, but PW Medtech needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help PW Medtech to focus more on services in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry, PW Medtech 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 PW Medtech, 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that PW Medtech 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 PW Medtech can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as PW Medtech is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, PW Medtech is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help PW Medtech 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.
PW Medtech Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of PW Medtech are -
Loyalty marketing
– PW Medtech 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at PW Medtech 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.
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. PW Medtech can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, PW Medtech can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that PW Medtech operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector.
Buying journey improvements
– PW Medtech 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 PW Medtech 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, PW Medtech 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– PW Medtech 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 PW Medtech to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help PW Medtech to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help PW Medtech to increase its market reach. PW Medtech 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of PW Medtech has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This can help PW Medtech to build a more holistic ecosystem for PW Medtech products in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, PW Medtech 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 PW Medtech to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for PW Medtech 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. PW Medtech 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. PW Medtech 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.
Threats PW Medtech External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of PW Medtech are -
Increasing wage structure of PW Medtech
– 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 PW Medtech.
Consumer confidence and its impact on PW Medtech 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.
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 PW Medtech business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– PW Medtech 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.
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. PW Medtech needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– PW Medtech has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, PW Medtech needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Medical Equipment & Supplies 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.
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 PW Medtech in the Medical Equipment & Supplies sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. PW Medtech can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that PW Medtech is facing in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– PW Medtech 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.
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 PW Medtech.
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. PW Medtech 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of PW Medtech Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at PW Medtech 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 PW Medtech 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 PW Medtech 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 PW Medtech 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 PW Medtech needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.