Medlab Clinical Limited SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by Medlab Clinical Limited 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) Medlab Clinical Limited is facing in its current business environment.

The Medlab Clinical Limited is one of the leading firms in its industry. Medlab Clinical Limited maintains its prominent position in market by carefully analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis an immensenly interactive process and requires effective coordination among various departments within the firm 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 called SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the Medlab Clinical Limited to develop four types of strategies:

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

Medlab Clinical Limited swot analysis / matrix

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The core purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a company can use to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Medlab Clinical Limited strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Medlab Clinical Limited SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Medlab Clinical Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, Medlab Clinical Limited 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 Medlab Clinical Limited are –

Read - Medlab Clinical Limited Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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Strong distribution network – Over the years Medlab Clinical Limited has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Medlab Clinical Limited 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.
Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Medlab Clinical Limited has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Medlab Clinical Limited just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
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 successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
Strong Free Cash Flow – Medlab Clinical Limited has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Medlab Clinical Limited is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
Superb Performance in New Markets – Medlab Clinical Limited has built expertise at entering new markets and making success of them. The expansion has helped the organization to build new revenue stream and diversify the economic cycle risk in the markets it operates in.

Weakness of Medlab Clinical Limited – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Medlab Clinical Limited can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where an organization can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its competitive advantage and strategic positioning.

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Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Medlab Clinical Limited is spending above the industry average on Research and Development, it has not been able to compete with the leading players in the industry in terms of innovation. It has come across as a mature firm looking forward to bring out products based on tested features in the market.
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.
Financial planning is not done properly and efficiently. The current asset ratio and liquid asset ratios suggest that the company can use the cash more efficiently than what it is doing at present.
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 Medlab Clinical Limited
Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Medlab Clinical Limited is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
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 Medlab Clinical Limited is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.

Opportunities for Medlab Clinical Limited – External Strategic Factors

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Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Medlab Clinical Limited an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
The new technology provides an opportunity to Medlab Clinical Limited 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.
The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Medlab Clinical Limited to increase its profitability.
Organization’s core competencies can be a success in similar other products field. A comparative example could be - GE healthcare research helped it in developing better Oil drilling machines.
Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Medlab Clinical Limited to capture new customers and increase its market share.
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 Medlab Clinical Limited in other product categories.
New customers from online channel – Over the past few years the company has invested vast sum of money into the online platform. This investment has opened new sales channel for Medlab Clinical Limited. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Medlab Clinical Limited . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.

Threats Medlab Clinical Limited Facing - External Strategic Factors

No regular supply of innovative products – Over the years the company has developed numerous products but those are often response to the development by other players. Secondly the supply of new products is not regular thus leading to high and low swings in the sales number over period of time.
As the company is operating in numerous countries it is exposed to currency fluctuations especially given the volatile political climate in number of markets across the world.
Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Medlab Clinical Limited profitability.
Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Medlab Clinical Limited
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.
New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Medlab Clinical Limited

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 Medlab Clinical Limited
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 Medlab Clinical Limited

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 Medlab Clinical Limited 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 Medlab Clinical Limited

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)