SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for BB Healthcare (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , BB Healthcare is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that BB Healthcare can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the BB Healthcare, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which BB Healthcare 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 BB Healthcare can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of BB Healthcare
2. Improving business portfolio management of BB Healthcare
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 BB Healthcare
Strengths of BB Healthcare | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of BB Healthcare are -
Organizational Resilience of BB Healthcare
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing BB Healthcare does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– BB Healthcare 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the BB Healthcare 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– BB Healthcare is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– BB Healthcare 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 BB Healthcare in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– BB Healthcare has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled BB Healthcare to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped BB Healthcare to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– BB Healthcare has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – BB Healthcare staying ahead in the Misc. Financial Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of BB Healthcare 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that BB Healthcare 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– BB Healthcare is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided BB Healthcare 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.
Learning organization
- BB Healthcare 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 BB Healthcare is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at BB Healthcare emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– BB Healthcare has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Financial Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of BB Healthcare have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of BB Healthcare | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of BB Healthcare are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, BB Healthcare 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 BB Healthcare lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at BB Healthcare, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. BB Healthcare has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As BB Healthcare 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.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at BB Healthcare 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of BB Healthcare 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though BB Healthcare has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Financial Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. BB Healthcare should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, BB Healthcare 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. BB Healthcare 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, BB Healthcare needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, BB Healthcare is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help BB Healthcare to provide better information regarding Misc. Financial Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Financial Services industry, BB Healthcare 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.
Employees’ less understanding of BB Healthcare strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of BB Healthcare 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.
BB Healthcare Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of BB Healthcare are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, BB Healthcare 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– BB Healthcare 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at BB Healthcare 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects BB Healthcare can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for BB Healthcare 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for BB Healthcare 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.
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 BB Healthcare in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now BB Healthcare can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help BB Healthcare to increase its market reach. BB Healthcare 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.
Loyalty marketing
– BB Healthcare 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of BB Healthcare has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help BB Healthcare to build a more holistic ecosystem for BB Healthcare products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for BB Healthcare 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 BB Healthcare to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, BB Healthcare is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. BB Healthcare can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Financial Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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. BB Healthcare can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats BB Healthcare External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of BB Healthcare 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 BB Healthcare in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– BB Healthcare 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, BB Healthcare 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 BB Healthcare prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of BB Healthcare
– 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 BB Healthcare.
Environmental challenges
– BB Healthcare 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. BB Healthcare can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– BB Healthcare 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Financial Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. BB Healthcare can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– BB Healthcare 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that BB Healthcare is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 BB Healthcare business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 BB Healthcare.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– BB Healthcare has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, BB Healthcare needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Financial Services 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 BB Healthcare Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at BB Healthcare 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 BB Healthcare 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 BB Healthcare 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 BB Healthcare 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 BB Healthcare needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
