Rhoen-Klinikum (0NQH) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / 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 – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Rhoen-Klinikum

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.

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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

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Strengths of Rhoen-Klinikum | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Rhoen-Klinikum are -

Cross disciplinary teams

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

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.

Learning organization

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

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.

Digital Transformation in Healthcare Facilities industry

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

Training and development

– Rhoen-Klinikum 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.

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.

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.

Analytics focus

– Rhoen-Klinikum 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.

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.

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.

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Weaknesses of Rhoen-Klinikum | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Rhoen-Klinikum are -

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Rhoen-Klinikum has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.

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.

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.

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.

Ability to respond to the competition

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

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Rhoen-Klinikum has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Healthcare Facilities industry over the last five years. Rhoen-Klinikum 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.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Rhoen-Klinikum, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Healthcare Facilities industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.

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.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Rhoen-Klinikum has some of the most successful models in the Healthcare Facilities industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Rhoen-Klinikum should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

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.

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.

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Rhoen-Klinikum Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Rhoen-Klinikum are -

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. Rhoen-Klinikum can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Rhoen-Klinikum 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Rhoen-Klinikum 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.

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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Rhoen-Klinikum 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.

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.

Manufacturing automation

– Rhoen-Klinikum 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Rhoen-Klinikum 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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Threats Rhoen-Klinikum External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Rhoen-Klinikum are -

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 Rhoen-Klinikum in the Healthcare Facilities sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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.

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 Rhoen-Klinikum.

Environmental challenges

– Rhoen-Klinikum 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. Rhoen-Klinikum can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Healthcare Facilities industry.

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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Rhoen-Klinikum 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 Healthcare Facilities industry.

Increasing wage structure of Rhoen-Klinikum

– 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 Rhoen-Klinikum.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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.

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