Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , HBM Healthcare Investments is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of HBM Healthcare Investments
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that HBM Healthcare Investments can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the HBM Healthcare Investments, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which HBM Healthcare Investments 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 HBM Healthcare Investments can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of HBM Healthcare Investments
2. Improving business portfolio management of HBM Healthcare Investments
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Misc. Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of HBM Healthcare Investments
Strengths of HBM Healthcare Investments | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of HBM Healthcare Investments are -
High brand equity
– HBM Healthcare Investments has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled HBM Healthcare Investments to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– HBM Healthcare Investments is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled HBM Healthcare Investments in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the HBM Healthcare Investments 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of HBM Healthcare Investments comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Financial Services 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.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For HBM Healthcare Investments digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. HBM Healthcare Investments 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– HBM Healthcare Investments has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled HBM Healthcare Investments to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped HBM Healthcare Investments to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of HBM Healthcare Investments in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– HBM Healthcare Investments has one of the best training and development program in Financial 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.
Organizational Resilience of HBM Healthcare Investments
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing HBM Healthcare Investments does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- HBM Healthcare Investments 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 HBM Healthcare Investments is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at HBM Healthcare Investments emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that HBM Healthcare Investments has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of HBM Healthcare Investments in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. HBM Healthcare Investments has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps HBM Healthcare Investments to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of HBM Healthcare Investments | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of HBM Healthcare Investments are -
High dependence on HBM Healthcare Investments ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of HBM Healthcare Investments still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though HBM Healthcare Investments has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As HBM Healthcare Investments is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry in last five years.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, HBM Healthcare Investments has high operating costs in the Misc. Financial Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract HBM Healthcare Investments lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, HBM Healthcare Investments has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry over the last five years. HBM Healthcare Investments 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, HBM Healthcare Investments needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at HBM Healthcare Investments, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. HBM Healthcare Investments has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Financial Services industry, HBM Healthcare Investments 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of HBM Healthcare Investments, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Financial Services 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.
Employees’ less understanding of HBM Healthcare Investments strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of HBM Healthcare Investments 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of HBM Healthcare Investments is just above the Misc. Financial Services industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that HBM Healthcare Investments needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Financial Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at HBM Healthcare Investments can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as HBM Healthcare Investments is planning to shift buying processes online.
HBM Healthcare Investments Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of HBM Healthcare Investments are -
Loyalty marketing
– HBM Healthcare Investments 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.
Manufacturing automation
– HBM Healthcare Investments can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Financial Services 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for HBM Healthcare Investments 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at HBM Healthcare Investments 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Financial Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. HBM Healthcare Investments can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for HBM Healthcare Investments in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Financial Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for HBM Healthcare Investments in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now HBM Healthcare Investments can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for HBM Healthcare Investments 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 HBM Healthcare Investments to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– HBM Healthcare Investments 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, HBM Healthcare Investments can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help HBM Healthcare Investments to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 HBM Healthcare Investments 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, HBM Healthcare Investments can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that HBM Healthcare Investments operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– HBM Healthcare Investments has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled HBM Healthcare Investments to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help HBM Healthcare Investments to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats HBM Healthcare Investments External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of HBM Healthcare Investments are -
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. HBM Healthcare Investments 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, HBM Healthcare Investments may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Financial Services sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that HBM Healthcare Investments is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of HBM Healthcare Investments
– 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 HBM Healthcare Investments.
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 HBM Healthcare Investments.
Environmental challenges
– HBM Healthcare Investments 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. HBM Healthcare Investments can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
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. HBM Healthcare Investments needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– HBM Healthcare Investments 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
– HBM Healthcare Investments 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 Misc. Financial Services industry regulations.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents HBM Healthcare Investments with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Financial Services sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, HBM Healthcare Investments 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 HBM Healthcare Investments 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of HBM Healthcare Investments Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at HBM Healthcare Investments 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 HBM Healthcare Investments 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 HBM Healthcare Investments 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 HBM Healthcare Investments 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 HBM Healthcare Investments needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.