Rhoen-Klinikum (0NQH) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Healthcare Facilities
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Rhoen-Klinikum (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Rhoen-Klinikum is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Rhoen-Klinikum can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Rhoen-Klinikum, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Rhoen-Klinikum 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 Rhoen-Klinikum can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Rhoen-Klinikum
2. Improving business portfolio management of Rhoen-Klinikum
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 Rhoen-Klinikum
Strengths of Rhoen-Klinikum | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Rhoen-Klinikum are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Rhoen-Klinikum comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Healthcare Facilities 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.
Organizational Resilience of Rhoen-Klinikum
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Rhoen-Klinikum does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Rhoen-Klinikum is one of the most innovative firm in Healthcare Facilities sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– Rhoen-Klinikum is present in almost all the verticals within the Healthcare Facilities industry. This has provided Rhoen-Klinikum 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Rhoen-Klinikum has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Rhoen-Klinikum 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.
High brand equity
– Rhoen-Klinikum has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Rhoen-Klinikum to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Healthcare Facilities
– Rhoen-Klinikum is one of the leading players in the Healthcare Facilities industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Healthcare Facilities industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Rhoen-Klinikum in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Rhoen-Klinikum has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Rhoen-Klinikum 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Rhoen-Klinikum is one of the leading players in the Healthcare Facilities industry in United Kingdom. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United Kingdom. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Rhoen-Klinikum in Healthcare Facilities industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Healthcare Facilities industry
– Rhoen-Klinikum has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Rhoen-Klinikum to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Healthcare Facilities industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Rhoen-Klinikum to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Rhoen-Klinikum has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Healthcare Facilities industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Rhoen-Klinikum have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Rhoen-Klinikum | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Rhoen-Klinikum are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Rhoen-Klinikum products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Rhoen-Klinikum needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Rhoen-Klinikum is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Healthcare Facilities industry, but Rhoen-Klinikum needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Rhoen-Klinikum to focus more on services in the Healthcare Facilities industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Need for greater diversity
– Rhoen-Klinikum 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Rhoen-Klinikum 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Rhoen-Klinikum strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Rhoen-Klinikum 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Rhoen-Klinikum 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Rhoen-Klinikum needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Healthcare Facilities industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Rhoen-Klinikum 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Healthcare Facilities industry, Rhoen-Klinikum 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 to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Rhoen-Klinikum is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Rhoen-Klinikum to provide better information regarding Healthcare Facilities products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Rhoen-Klinikum has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Healthcare Facilities industry using digital technology.
Rhoen-Klinikum Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Rhoen-Klinikum are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Rhoen-Klinikum 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Rhoen-Klinikum 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Rhoen-Klinikum has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Healthcare Facilities sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Rhoen-Klinikum to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Rhoen-Klinikum to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Rhoen-Klinikum 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 Rhoen-Klinikum to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Rhoen-Klinikum 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. Rhoen-Klinikum 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Rhoen-Klinikum can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Rhoen-Klinikum operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Healthcare Facilities sector.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Healthcare Facilities industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Rhoen-Klinikum can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Buying journey improvements
– Rhoen-Klinikum can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Healthcare Facilities 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Rhoen-Klinikum has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Healthcare Facilities industry. This can help Rhoen-Klinikum to build a more holistic ecosystem for Rhoen-Klinikum products in the Healthcare Facilities industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Healthcare Facilities industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Rhoen-Klinikum in the Healthcare Facilities industry. Now Rhoen-Klinikum can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Rhoen-Klinikum is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Rhoen-Klinikum 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Rhoen-Klinikum can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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 Rhoen-Klinikum 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 Rhoen-Klinikum External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Rhoen-Klinikum are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Healthcare Facilities industry are lowering. It can presents Rhoen-Klinikum with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Healthcare Facilities sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Rhoen-Klinikum 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Rhoen-Klinikum 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 Healthcare Facilities industry regulations.
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.
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. Rhoen-Klinikum 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Rhoen-Klinikum 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Rhoen-Klinikum 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Rhoen-Klinikum 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 Rhoen-Klinikum prominent markets.
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. Rhoen-Klinikum needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Healthcare Facilities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Rhoen-Klinikum is facing in Healthcare Facilities sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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 Rhoen-Klinikum business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Rhoen-Klinikum has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Healthcare Facilities industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Rhoen-Klinikum needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Healthcare Facilities 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Rhoen-Klinikum Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Rhoen-Klinikum 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 Rhoen-Klinikum 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 Rhoen-Klinikum 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 Rhoen-Klinikum 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 Rhoen-Klinikum needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.