Avista Healthcare Public (AHPA) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Avista Healthcare Public (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Avista Healthcare Public is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Avista Healthcare Public
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Avista Healthcare Public can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Avista Healthcare Public, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Avista Healthcare Public 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 Avista Healthcare Public can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Avista Healthcare Public
2. Improving business portfolio management of Avista Healthcare Public
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Misc. Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Avista Healthcare Public
Strengths of Avista Healthcare Public | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Avista Healthcare Public are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Avista Healthcare Public in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Avista Healthcare Public has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Avista Healthcare Public to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Avista Healthcare Public to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– Avista Healthcare Public is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Avista Healthcare Public in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Avista Healthcare Public digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Avista Healthcare Public 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.
High brand equity
– Avista Healthcare Public has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Avista Healthcare Public to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Avista Healthcare Public 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 Avista Healthcare Public is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Avista Healthcare Public emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Avista Healthcare Public
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Avista Healthcare Public does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Avista Healthcare Public 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Avista Healthcare Public 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 Avista Healthcare Public have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– Avista Healthcare Public 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 recruit top talent
– Avista Healthcare Public is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Avista Healthcare Public 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.
Weaknesses of Avista Healthcare Public | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Avista Healthcare Public are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Avista Healthcare Public is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Avista Healthcare Public 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Avista Healthcare Public 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 Avista Healthcare Public lucrative customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Avista Healthcare Public is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but Avista Healthcare Public needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Avista Healthcare Public to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Avista Healthcare Public 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Avista Healthcare Public 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. Avista Healthcare Public 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.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Avista Healthcare Public supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Avista Healthcare Public is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Avista Healthcare Public vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Avista Healthcare Public 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Avista Healthcare Public 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. Avista Healthcare Public should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on Avista Healthcare Public ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Avista Healthcare Public 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 Avista Healthcare Public has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Avista Healthcare Public 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Avista Healthcare Public has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Avista Healthcare Public Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Avista Healthcare Public are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Avista Healthcare Public 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Avista Healthcare Public to increase its market reach. Avista Healthcare Public 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Avista Healthcare Public 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 Avista Healthcare Public to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Avista Healthcare Public is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Avista Healthcare Public 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Avista Healthcare Public 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 Avista Healthcare Public to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Avista Healthcare Public to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Avista Healthcare Public 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Avista Healthcare Public 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Avista Healthcare Public 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 Avista Healthcare Public to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Avista Healthcare Public in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now Avista Healthcare Public can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Financial Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Avista Healthcare Public 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. Avista Healthcare Public 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Avista Healthcare Public has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help Avista Healthcare Public to build a more holistic ecosystem for Avista Healthcare Public products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Avista Healthcare Public can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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. Avista Healthcare Public can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Avista Healthcare Public External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Avista Healthcare Public are -
Environmental challenges
– Avista Healthcare Public 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. Avista Healthcare Public can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Avista Healthcare Public in Misc. Financial Services industry. The Misc. Financial Services industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Avista Healthcare Public 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.
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 Avista Healthcare Public in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Avista Healthcare Public
– 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 Avista Healthcare Public.
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 Avista Healthcare Public.
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. Avista Healthcare Public can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Avista Healthcare Public has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Avista Healthcare Public 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Avista Healthcare Public 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.
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 Avista Healthcare Public business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Avista Healthcare Public is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Avista Healthcare Public 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Avista Healthcare Public Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Avista Healthcare Public 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 Avista Healthcare Public 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 Avista Healthcare Public 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 Avista Healthcare Public 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 Avista Healthcare Public needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.