Modern Dental (3600) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Medical Equipment & Supplies
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Modern Dental (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Modern Dental is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, 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 Modern Dental can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Modern Dental, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Modern Dental 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 Modern Dental can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Modern Dental
2. Improving business portfolio management of Modern Dental
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 Modern Dental
Strengths of Modern Dental | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Modern Dental are -
Learning organization
- Modern Dental 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 Modern Dental is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Modern Dental emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Modern Dental 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Modern Dental 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.
Digital Transformation in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Modern Dental digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Modern Dental 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– Modern Dental is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Modern Dental is one of the most innovative firm in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector.
Training and development
– Modern Dental has one of the best training and development program in Healthcare industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Ability to lead change in Medical Equipment & Supplies
– Modern Dental 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 Modern Dental in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Modern Dental in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Modern Dental has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Modern Dental to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Modern Dental 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Modern Dental in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Modern Dental has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Modern Dental to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Modern Dental | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Modern Dental are -
Skills based hiring in Medical Equipment & Supplies industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Modern Dental 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Modern Dental, in the dynamic environment of Medical Equipment & Supplies industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Modern Dental has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry, Modern Dental 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Modern Dental 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. Modern Dental 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Modern Dental 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. Modern Dental should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Modern Dental 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 Modern Dental can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Modern Dental is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Modern Dental 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Modern Dental 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Modern Dental products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Modern Dental needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Modern Dental is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Modern Dental to provide better information regarding Medical Equipment & Supplies products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High 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 Modern Dental supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Modern Dental is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Modern Dental vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Modern Dental Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Modern Dental are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Modern Dental 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 Modern Dental to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Modern Dental to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Modern Dental can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Modern Dental operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Medical Equipment & Supplies sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Modern Dental to increase its market reach. Modern Dental 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Modern Dental 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Modern Dental 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 Modern Dental to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Modern Dental 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Modern Dental 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.
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. Modern Dental can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 Modern Dental in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry. Now Modern Dental can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Modern Dental 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 Modern Dental 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. Modern Dental 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. Modern Dental 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.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Modern Dental to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Threats Modern Dental External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Modern Dental are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Modern Dental 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 Modern Dental 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.
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 Modern Dental business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Modern Dental.
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. Modern Dental 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, Modern Dental 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 Modern Dental prominent markets.
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. Modern Dental can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Modern Dental
– 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 Modern Dental.
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 Modern Dental in the Medical Equipment & Supplies sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Modern Dental can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry.
Environmental challenges
– Modern Dental 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. Modern Dental can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Medical Equipment & Supplies industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Modern Dental 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Modern Dental Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Modern Dental 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 Modern Dental 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 Modern Dental 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 Modern Dental 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 Modern Dental needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.