Orpea (0NEX) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Orpea (United Kingdom)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Orpea is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization, increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Orpea

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Orpea can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Orpea, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Orpea 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Orpea can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Orpea
2. Improving business portfolio management of Orpea
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Healthcare Facilities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Orpea

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Strengths of Orpea | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Orpea are -

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Orpea in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Orpea has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Orpea to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Orpea has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Orpea 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Orpea is present in almost all the verticals within the Healthcare Facilities industry. This has provided Orpea 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.

Training and development

– Orpea 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Orpea has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Orpea staying ahead in the Healthcare Facilities industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Organizational Resilience of Orpea

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Orpea does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Orpea 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.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Healthcare Facilities industry

– Orpea has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Orpea to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Healthcare Facilities industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Orpea to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Analytics focus

– Orpea is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Healthcare Facilities industry. The technology infrastructure of United Kingdom is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.

High brand equity

– Orpea has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Orpea to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Learning organization

- Orpea 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 Orpea is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Orpea emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Digital Transformation in Healthcare Facilities industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Orpea digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Orpea 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.

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Weaknesses of Orpea | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Orpea are -

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Orpea, in the dynamic environment of Healthcare Facilities industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Orpea has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Orpea is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Orpea to provide better information regarding Healthcare Facilities products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Healthcare Facilities industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Orpea 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 Healthcare Facilities industry.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Orpea is one of the leading players in the Healthcare Facilities industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Healthcare Facilities industry in last five years.

Employees’ less understanding of Orpea strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Orpea don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Orpea has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Healthcare Facilities industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Orpea needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Healthcare Facilities industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Orpea can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Orpea is planning to shift buying processes online.

Skills based hiring in Healthcare Facilities industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Orpea 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 dependence on Orpea ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Orpea still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Healthcare Facilities industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Orpea has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Orpea needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Orpea is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Healthcare Facilities industry, but Orpea needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Orpea to focus more on services in the Healthcare Facilities industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

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Orpea Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Orpea are -

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Orpea is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Orpea can utilize new technology in the field of Healthcare Facilities industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Orpea in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Healthcare Facilities industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Orpea has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Healthcare Facilities industry. This can help Orpea to build a more holistic ecosystem for Orpea products in the Healthcare Facilities industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Orpea 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 Healthcare Facilities industry.

Loyalty marketing

– Orpea 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Orpea 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 Orpea to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Orpea 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Orpea can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Orpea operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Healthcare Facilities sector.

Manufacturing automation

– Orpea can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Healthcare Facilities sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Healthcare Facilities industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Orpea 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. Orpea 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Orpea to increase its market reach. Orpea 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Orpea can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Orpea 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.

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Threats Orpea External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Orpea are -

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Orpea 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 Orpea prominent markets.

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.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Orpea may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Healthcare Facilities sector.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Orpea in Healthcare Facilities industry. The Healthcare Facilities 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.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Healthcare Facilities industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Orpea can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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. Orpea needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Healthcare Facilities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Orpea 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.

Aging population

– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.

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. Orpea 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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Orpea 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 Healthcare Facilities industry and other sectors.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Healthcare Facilities industry are lowering. It can presents Orpea with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Healthcare Facilities sector.

Increasing wage structure of Orpea

– 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 Orpea.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Orpea is facing in Healthcare Facilities sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Orpea Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Orpea 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 Orpea 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 Orpea 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 Orpea 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 Orpea needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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