Caretech (CTH) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Healthcare Facilities
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Caretech (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Caretech is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing, technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Caretech can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Caretech, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Caretech 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 Caretech can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Caretech
2. Improving business portfolio management of Caretech
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 Caretech
Strengths of Caretech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Caretech are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Caretech in Healthcare Facilities industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Caretech
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Caretech does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management in the Healthcare Facilities industry
– Caretech is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Caretech 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.
High brand equity
– Caretech has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Caretech to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Caretech 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 Caretech have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Caretech 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 Caretech is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Caretech emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Caretech in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Caretech has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Caretech to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Caretech 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Healthcare Facilities industry
– Caretech has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Caretech to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Healthcare Facilities industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Caretech to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Caretech 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Caretech 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.
Weaknesses of Caretech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Caretech are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Caretech 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Caretech products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Caretech needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Caretech 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Caretech strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Caretech 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 Caretech is just above the Healthcare Facilities 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Caretech, 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Caretech is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Healthcare Facilities industry, but Caretech needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Caretech to focus more on services in the Healthcare Facilities industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Caretech needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Healthcare Facilities industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Caretech can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Caretech is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Caretech has high operating costs in the Healthcare Facilities industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Caretech lucrative customers.
High dependence on Caretech ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Caretech still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Healthcare Facilities industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Caretech has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Caretech 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.
Caretech Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Caretech are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Caretech can develop new processes and procedures in Healthcare Facilities industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Caretech can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Caretech 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.
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. Caretech 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. Caretech 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Caretech 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Caretech 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.
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. Caretech can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Caretech to increase its market reach. Caretech 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Caretech has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Healthcare Facilities industry. This can help Caretech to build a more holistic ecosystem for Caretech products in the Healthcare Facilities industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Caretech 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Caretech 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 Caretech to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Caretech to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Caretech 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Caretech 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.
Threats Caretech External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Caretech are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Caretech 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.
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 Caretech in the Healthcare Facilities sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Caretech has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Healthcare Facilities industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Caretech 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Caretech 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.
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. Caretech 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.
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 Caretech business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Caretech demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Healthcare Facilities industry and other sectors.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Healthcare Facilities industry are lowering. It can presents Caretech with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Healthcare Facilities sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Healthcare Facilities industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Caretech can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Caretech needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Healthcare Facilities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Caretech 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. Caretech can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Healthcare Facilities industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Caretech Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Caretech 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 Caretech 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 Caretech 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 Caretech 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 Caretech needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
