Tenet Healthcare SWOT Analysis / Matrix

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SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by Tenet Healthcare managers to do a situational analysis of the organization . It is a handy technique to understand the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) Tenet Healthcare is facing in its current business environment.

The Tenet Healthcare is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Tenet Healthcare maintains its prominent position in market by critically analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis an immensenly interactive process and requires effective coordination among various departments within the company such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.

The SWOT Analysis framework facilitates an organization to identify the internal strategic factors such as -strengths and weaknesses, & external strategic factors such as - opportunities and threats. It leads to a 2X2 matrix – also called SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix enables the managers of the Tenet Healthcare to develop four types of strategies:

SO (strengths-opportunities) Strategies
WO (weaknesses-opportunities) Strategies
ST (strengths-threats) Strategies
WT (weaknesses-threats) Strategies

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The core purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that an organization can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Tenet Healthcare strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to Tenet Healthcare SWOT Analysis

Strengths of Tenet Healthcare – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading firms in its industry, Tenet Healthcare has numerous strengths that help it to thrive in the market place. These strengths not only help it to protect the market share in existing markets but also help in penetrating new markets. Based on Fern Fort University extensive research – some of the strengths of Tenet Healthcare are –

Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.
Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Tenet Healthcare is investing huge resources in training and development of its employees resulting in a workforce that is not only highly skilled but also motivated to achieve more.
Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
Strong Free Cash Flow – Tenet Healthcare has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Tenet Healthcare products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
Strong distribution network – Over the years Tenet Healthcare has built a reliable distribution network that can reach majority of its potential market.
Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Tenet Healthcare is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.

Weakness of Tenet Healthcare – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where Tenet Healthcare can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where a firm can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its competitive advantage and strategic positioning.

Financial planning is not done properly and efficiently. The current asset ratio and liquid asset ratios suggest that the company can use the cash more efficiently than what it is doing at present.
High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Tenet Healthcare has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
There are gaps in the product range sold by the company. This lack of choice can give a new competitor a foothold in the market.
Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Tenet Healthcare needs to put more money in technology to integrate the processes across the board. Right now the investment in technologies is not at par with the vision of the company.
Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Tenet Healthcare is spending above the industry average on Research and Development, it has not been able to compete with the leading players in the industry in terms of innovation. It has come across as a mature firm looking forward to bring out products based on tested features in the market.
Days inventory is high compare to the competitors – making the company raise more capital to invest in the channel. This can impact the long term growth of Tenet Healthcare
The marketing of the products left a lot to be desired. Even though the product is a success in terms of sale but its positioning and unique selling proposition is not clearly defined which can lead to the attacks in this segment from the competitors.

Opportunities for Tenet Healthcare – External Strategic Factors

New environmental policies – The new opportunities will create a level playing field for all the players in the industry. It represent a great opportunity for Tenet Healthcare to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
Decreasing cost of transportation because of lower shipping prices can also bring down the cost of Tenet Healthcare’s products thus providing an opportunity to the company - either to boost its profitability or pass on the benefits to the customers to gain market share.
Organization’s core competencies can be a success in similar other products field. A comparative example could be - GE healthcare research helped it in developing better Oil drilling machines.
New customers from online channel – Over the past few years the company has invested vast sum of money into the online platform. This investment has opened new sales channel for Tenet Healthcare. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Tenet Healthcare to increase its profitability.
The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Tenet Healthcare to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
Stable free cash flow provides opportunities to invest in adjacent product segments. With more cash in bank the company can invest in new technologies as well as in new products segments. This should open a window of opportunity for Tenet Healthcare in other product categories.
Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Tenet Healthcare an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.

Threats Tenet Healthcare Facing - External Strategic Factors

Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Tenet Healthcare
Liability laws in different countries are different and Tenet Healthcare may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
As the company is operating in numerous countries it is exposed to currency fluctuations especially given the volatile political climate in number of markets across the world.
Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Tenet Healthcare profitability.
The demand of the highly profitable products is seasonal in nature and any unlikely event during the peak season may impact the profitability of the company in short to medium term.
Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Tenet Healthcare

Although the SWOT analysis is widely used as a strategic planning tool, the analysis does have its share of limitations.

Certain capabilities or factors of an organization can be both a strength and weakness at the same time. This is one of the major limitations of SWOT analysis . For example changing environmental regulations can be both a threat to company it can also be an opportunity in a sense that it will enable the company to be on a level playing field or at advantage to competitors if it able to develop the products faster than the competitors.
SWOT does not show how to achieve a competitive advantage, so it must not be an end in itself.
The matrix is only a starting point for a discussion on how proposed strategies could be implemented. It provided an evaluation window but not an implementation plan based on strategic competitiveness of Tenet Healthcare
SWOT is a static assessment - analysis of status quo with few prospective changes. As circumstances, capabilities, threats, and strategies change, the dynamics of a competitive environment may not be revealed in a single matrix.
SWOT analysis may lead the firm to overemphasize a single internal or external factor in formulating strategies. There are interrelationships among the key internal and external factors that SWOT does not reveal that may be important in devising strategies.

Weighted SWOT Analysis of Tenet Healthcare

In light of the above mentioned limitations of the SWOT analysis / matrix, corporate managers decided to provide weightage to each internal strength and weakness of the firm. Organizations also assess the likelihood of events taking place in the coming future and how strong their impact could be on company's performance.

This method is called Weighted SWOT analysis. It is better than doing simplistic SWOT analysis because with Weighted SWOT Analysis Tenet Healthcare managers can focus on the most critical factors and discount the non-important one. It also solves the long list problem where organizations ends up making a long list but none of the factors deemed too critical.

Limitation of Weighted SWOT analysis of Tenet Healthcare

This approach also suffers from one major drawback - it focus on individual importance of factor rather than how they are collectively important and impact the business holistically.

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Example of Weighted SWOT Analysis

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SWOT Worksheet & Template

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References / Citations & Bibliography

M. E. Porter, Competitive Strategy(New York: Free Press, 1980)
A. D. Chandler, Strategy and Structure (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1962)
O. E. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies(New York: Free Press, 1975);
L. Wrigley, Divisional Autonomy and Diversification (PhD, Harvard Business School, 1970)
R. E. White, Generic Business Strategies, Organizational Context and Performance: An Empirical Investigation, Strategic Management Journal7 (1986)