Brookdale Senior Living (BKD) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Healthcare Facilities
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Brookdale Senior Living (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Brookdale Senior Living is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Brookdale Senior Living
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Brookdale Senior Living can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Brookdale Senior Living, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Brookdale Senior Living 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 Brookdale Senior Living can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Brookdale Senior Living
2. Improving business portfolio management of Brookdale Senior Living
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Healthcare Facilities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Brookdale Senior Living
Strengths of Brookdale Senior Living | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Brookdale Senior Living are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Brookdale Senior Living 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.
Organizational Resilience of Brookdale Senior Living
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Brookdale Senior Living does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Healthcare Facilities industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Brookdale Senior Living digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Brookdale Senior Living 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Brookdale Senior Living 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 Brookdale Senior Living have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Brookdale Senior Living 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Brookdale Senior Living is one of the leading players in the Healthcare Facilities 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.
Learning organization
- Brookdale Senior Living 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 Brookdale Senior Living is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Brookdale Senior Living emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Brookdale Senior Living has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Brookdale Senior Living staying ahead in the Healthcare Facilities industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Brookdale Senior Living is one of the most innovative firm in Healthcare Facilities sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– Brookdale Senior Living is present in almost all the verticals within the Healthcare Facilities industry. This has provided Brookdale Senior Living 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Brookdale Senior Living in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Brookdale Senior Living has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Brookdale Senior Living to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Healthcare Facilities
– Brookdale Senior Living is one of the leading players in the Healthcare Facilities industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Healthcare Facilities industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Brookdale Senior Living in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Brookdale Senior Living | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Brookdale Senior Living are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Brookdale Senior Living 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 Brookdale Senior Living can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Brookdale Senior Living is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Brookdale Senior Living 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Brookdale Senior Living 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Brookdale Senior Living, 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Brookdale Senior Living has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Healthcare Facilities industry over the last five years. Brookdale Senior Living 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 Brookdale Senior Living ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Brookdale Senior Living 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 Brookdale Senior Living has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Healthcare Facilities industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Brookdale Senior Living is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Healthcare Facilities industry.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Brookdale Senior Living is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Brookdale Senior Living to provide better information regarding Healthcare Facilities products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Brookdale Senior Living 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 Brookdale Senior Living lucrative customers.
Employees’ less understanding of Brookdale Senior Living strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Brookdale Senior Living 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Brookdale Senior Living needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Brookdale Senior Living Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Brookdale Senior Living are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Brookdale Senior Living is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Brookdale Senior Living can utilize new technology in the field of Healthcare Facilities industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Brookdale Senior Living 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. Brookdale Senior Living 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 Brookdale Senior Living in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Healthcare Facilities industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Brookdale Senior Living 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Brookdale Senior Living 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Brookdale Senior Living 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Brookdale Senior Living can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Brookdale Senior Living 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Brookdale Senior Living 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Brookdale Senior Living 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Brookdale Senior Living has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Healthcare Facilities industry. This can help Brookdale Senior Living to build a more holistic ecosystem for Brookdale Senior Living products in the Healthcare Facilities industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Healthcare Facilities industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Brookdale Senior Living in the Healthcare Facilities industry. Now Brookdale Senior Living can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Brookdale Senior Living External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Brookdale Senior Living are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Brookdale Senior Living 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 Brookdale Senior Living prominent markets.
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. Brookdale Senior Living can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Healthcare Facilities industry are lowering. It can presents Brookdale Senior Living with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Healthcare Facilities sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Brookdale Senior Living is facing in Healthcare Facilities sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Brookdale Senior Living needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Healthcare Facilities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Brookdale Senior Living high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Brookdale Senior Living 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.
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 Brookdale Senior Living.
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 Brookdale Senior Living business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Brookdale Senior Living has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Healthcare Facilities industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Brookdale Senior Living 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.
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. Brookdale Senior Living 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.
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 Brookdale Senior Living in the Healthcare Facilities sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Brookdale Senior Living in Healthcare Facilities industry. The Healthcare Facilities 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Brookdale Senior Living Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Brookdale Senior Living 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 Brookdale Senior Living 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 Brookdale Senior Living 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 Brookdale Senior Living 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 Brookdale Senior Living needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
