Im Medical Ltd SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by Im Medical Ltd managers to do a situational analysis of the company . It is a useful technique to map out the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) Im Medical Ltd is facing in its current business environment.

The Im Medical Ltd is one of the leading firms in its industry. Im Medical Ltd maintains its prominent position in market by critically analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis an immensenly interactive process and requires effective coordination among various departments within the organization such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.

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The SWOT Analysis framework facilitates an organization to identify the internal strategic factors such as -strengths and weaknesses, & external strategic factors such as - opportunities and threats. It leads to a 2X2 matrix – also known as SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix enables the managers of the Im Medical Ltd to develop four types of strategies:

SO (strengths-opportunities) Strategies
WO (weaknesses-opportunities) Strategies
ST (strengths-threats) Strategies
WT (weaknesses-threats) Strategies

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The core purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that an organization can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Im Medical Ltd strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Im Medical Ltd SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Im Medical Ltd – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading organizations in its industry, Im Medical Ltd has numerous strengths that help it to thrive in the market place. These strengths not only help it to protect the market share in existing markets but also help in penetrating new markets. Based on Fern Fort University extensive research – some of the strengths of Im Medical Ltd are –

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Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
Strong dealer community – It has built a culture among distributor & dealers where the dealers not only promote company’s products but also invest in training the sales team to explain to the customer how he/she can extract the maximum benefits out of the products.
Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Im Medical Ltd is investing huge resources in training and development of its employees resulting in a workforce that is not only highly skilled but also motivated to achieve more.
Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
High level of customer satisfaction – the company with its dedicated customer relationship management department has able to achieve a high level of customer satisfaction among present customers and good brand equity among the potential customers.
Strong distribution network – Over the years Im Medical Ltd has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
Strong Free Cash Flow – Im Medical Ltd has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Im Medical Ltd products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.

Weakness of Im Medical Ltd – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Im Medical Ltd can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where a firm can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its competitive advantage and strategic positioning.

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Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Im Medical Ltd needs to put more money in technology to integrate the processes across the board. Right now the investment in technologies is not at par with the vision of the company.
The company has not being able to tackle the challenges present by the new entrants in the segment and has lost small market share in the niche categories. Im Medical Ltd has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
Not very good at product demand forecasting leading to higher rate of missed opportunities compare to its competitors. One of the reason why the days inventory is high compare to its competitors is that Im Medical Ltd is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.
Limited success outside core business – Even though Im Medical Ltd is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
Days inventory is high compare to the competitors – making the company raise more capital to invest in the channel. This can impact the long term growth of Im Medical Ltd
There are gaps in the product range sold by the company. This lack of choice can give a new competitor a foothold in the market.

Opportunities for Im Medical Ltd – External Strategic Factors

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The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Im Medical Ltd to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
Stable free cash flow provides opportunities to invest in adjacent product segments. With more cash in bank the company can invest in new technologies as well as in new products segments. This should open a window of opportunity for Im Medical Ltd in other product categories.
New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Im Medical Ltd . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Im Medical Ltd’s products thus providing an opportunity to the company - either to boost its profitability or pass on the benefits to the customers to gain market share.
Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Im Medical Ltd to capture new customers and increase its market share.
New environmental policies – The new opportunities will create a level playing field for all the players in the industry. It represent a great opportunity for Im Medical Ltd to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
The new technology provides an opportunity to Im Medical Ltd to practices differentiated pricing strategy in the new market. It will enable the firm to maintain its loyal customers with great service and lure new customers through other value oriented propositions.
Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Im Medical Ltd an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.

Threats Im Medical Ltd Facing - External Strategic Factors

Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
Liability laws in different countries are different and Im Medical Ltd may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
The demand of the highly profitable products is seasonal in nature and any unlikely event during the peak season may impact the profitability of the company in short to medium term.
Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Im Medical Ltd
Intense competition – Stable profitability has increased the number of players in the industry over last two years which has put downward pressure on not only profitability but also on overall sales.
Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Im Medical Ltd

Although the SWOT analysis is widely used as a strategic planning tool, the analysis does have its share of limitations.

Certain capabilities or factors of an organization can be both a strength and weakness at the same time. This is one of the major limitations of SWOT analysis . For example changing environmental regulations can be both a threat to company it can also be an opportunity in a sense that it will enable the company to be on a level playing field or at advantage to competitors if it able to develop the products faster than the competitors.
SWOT does not show how to achieve a competitive advantage, so it must not be an end in itself.
The matrix is only a starting point for a discussion on how proposed strategies could be implemented. It provided an evaluation window but not an implementation plan based on strategic competitiveness of Im Medical Ltd
SWOT is a static assessment - analysis of status quo with few prospective changes. As circumstances, capabilities, threats, and strategies change, the dynamics of a competitive environment may not be revealed in a single matrix.
SWOT analysis may lead the firm to overemphasize a single internal or external factor in formulating strategies. There are interrelationships among the key internal and external factors that SWOT does not reveal that may be important in devising strategies.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Im Medical Ltd

In light of the above mentioned limitations of the SWOT analysis / matrix, corporate managers decided to provide weightage to each internal strength and weakness of the firm. Organizations also assess the likelihood of events taking place in the coming future and how strong their impact could be on company's performance.

This method is called Weighted SWOT analysis. It is better than doing simplistic SWOT analysis because with Weighted SWOT Analysis Im Medical Ltd managers can focus on the most critical factors and discount the non-important one. It also solves the long list problem where organizations ends up making a long list but none of the factors deemed too critical.

Limitation of Weighted SWOT analysis of Im Medical Ltd

This approach also suffers from one major drawback - it focus on individual importance of factor rather than how they are collectively important and impact the business holistically.

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Example of Weighted SWOT Analysis

You can email us to get an example document of Weighted SWOT analysis.

SWOT Worksheet & Template

If you like to do your own SWOT analysis or want to make your own Weighted SWOT SWOT matrix then feel free to download Fern Fort University SWOT Analysis Template.

References / Citations & Bibliography

M. E. Porter, Competitive Strategy(New York: Free Press, 1980)
A. D. Chandler, Strategy and Structure (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1962)
O. E. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies(New York: Free Press, 1975);
L. Wrigley, Divisional Autonomy and Diversification (PhD, Harvard Business School, 1970)
R. E. White, Generic Business Strategies, Organizational Context and Performance: An Empirical Investigation, Strategic Management Journal7 (1986)