Strategic Analysis of St Thomas' Hospital: Business Environment

This report provides a comprehensive strategic analysis of St Thomas' Hospital, a major NHS teaching hospital in London. It begins with an introduction to strategic management and its tools, including SWOT and PESTLE analyses. The report then delves into an internal analysis using SWOT, identifying the hospital's strengths (brand image, qualified staff), weaknesses (high costs, limited presence), opportunities (market expansion, new technologies), and threats (new entrants, competition). Following the SWOT analysis, the report presents an external analysis using PESTLE, examining political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors impacting the hospital. The report also incorporates a TOWS matrix to develop strategies. Finally, the report offers recommendations, such as market penetration and organizing seminars, to enhance the hospital's performance and concludes with a summary of its findings and future prospects, along with a list of references using the Harvard referencing system.

Business Environment

BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT 1
Introduction
Strategic Management is the process of analysing, evaluating and measuring the performance
of an organisation. The process is implied by the organisation in order to achieve the success
in the market. There are many tools used by the company such as SWOT, PESTLE, Porters
Five Forces Framework and many others. In this report, the discussion is made on the topic of
strategic management. In this report, the St Thomas' Hospital has been taken into
consideration to analyse the micro and macro environment.
St Thomas' Hospital is a large NHS teaching hospital in Central London, England. It is one of
those institutions that compromise the King’s Health Partners. The hospital has provided
healthcare freely or under the charitable in 12th century. It is one of the most famous hospitals
in London. The hospital is accessible from Westminster tube station (NHS, 2018).
The report is classified in two parts such as internal analysis and external analysis. In the first
part, the discussion is made on the internal analysis with the help of SWOT Analysis tool. In
the second part, external analysis will be done with the basis of PESTLE Analysis tool.
Main Body
PESTLE Analysis
It is also a strategic tool which is used to determine the macro-environment analysis such as
Political, environmental, social, technology, legal and economic.
Political
After the Brexit, there are many issues faced by the health industry and these are cross border
cooperation, funding and finance. The decision taken by political parties of both countries are

BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT 2
affects the health care industry. The government interference is high as it provides the
charitable auspices services under the 12th century (The Kings Fund, 2016).
Economical
The economy of United Kingdom is highly developed and market-oriented. It is a fifth largest
economy in the world in terms of Gross domestic product (GDP). The GDP rate of the
country is $ 2.829 trillion and $3.128 trillion (FT, 2018). High GDP rate of the economy
states that the people of UK can spend the large amount in medical treatment and afford the
high amount of treatments.
(Source: FT., 2018)

BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT 3
Social
It has been seen that the social image is required to build by health care company. It is
observed that the social image of the organisation is developed as it provides the charitable
services to the people. The hospital also invests in the research funds for pregnancy problems
and to provides information to parents.
Technological
UK is the economy which is highly developed in technology sector. The government of UK
provides the outstanding environment for global technology companies such as a strong start-
up culture. It is a beneficial factor for the organisation as it can also adopt the advance
technology and provide the various facilities to people (UK Government, 2018)
Legal
The government of UK adopts the different legal laws to protect the consumers such as
consumer’s laws, discrimination law, fraud law, employment raw, health and safety law. It is
required for the company to follow these rules and regulation. These are important laws for
the hospital as they provide the health related services so; it has to more aware about it.
Environmental
The people of UK face the environmental challenges such air pollution, climate change, litter,
waste and soil contamination. The environmental condition of the country is considered as
dangerous for the society and people. It is beneficial factor for the hospital in terms of
earning but as per the social point of view, it is a harmful factor for society.

BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT 4
SWOT Analysis
It is a strategic tool which is used by the organisation to determine the strength, weaknesses,
opportunity and threat.
Strength
High Brand Image
Highly qualified doctors and facilities
Quality of services to prevent the patients
Variety of services such as Children services,
community services
Partners are also a strength and that is king’s
health partners.
Weakness
High cost required
The hospital present in limited areas
Opportunity
Grab the new market by entering the market
More facilities for patients by adopting
advance technology
Threat
The threat of new entrants with high
technology
High level of threat of competitors such as
Guy’s Hospitals
Strength
It has been seen that the hospital have the high brand image in London. It is observed that the
hospital have highly qualified and experienced doctors with the number of 16200. The
doctors and facilities of the hospital help to create the brand image of the organisation in the
market. The organisation also provides the services in free as a charity to poor people.
Weakness

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It has been seen that the hospital requires high cost in order to provide the different services
to patients. High cost services are requires to a hospital as the different machines are used to
provide the services to patient. It is also strength for the hospital but sometimes it is also
becomes a weakness for the hospital.
The other weakness of the organisation is its presence in limited number of areas. It has been
seen that the each and every individual requires the body scan and the other treatment for
hospitals.
Opportunity
It has been analysed that the St. Thomas hospital has the opportunity to expand its services at
the international level. The hospital have high brand image in the market and it also provides
the services to all type of age of people such as communities, children and old age of people.
The high facilities provided by the organisation to its patients create the opportunity for
organisation to grab the market share of new market (Guys and St. Thomas, 2018).
Threat
As the time passage, technology is developing and the different tools are introduced by
scientist. There are tools are also introduced for the health of an individual. It is observed that
the hospital have high threat of new entrants as they enter the market with the advance
technology due to which the large number of people prefers to take services of new hospitals.
The other threat of a hospital face is the high level of competition among the organisations.
There are many organisations that provide the similar nature of services to patients as the
hospital provides to its patient such as Guy's Hospital.

BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT 6
TOWS Matrix
TWOS Weaknesses
1. High capital
required
2. Limited presence
Strength
1. High brand image
2. Qualified Staff
Threat
1. New
entrants(Advance
technology)
2. Competitors
WT
1. The high capital is
required in order to
establish the hospital
to provide services
that is why; the threat
of new entrants is
reduces.
2. The company has to
expand the business
in order to beat its
competitors.
ST
1. The hospital have
high brand image
which becomes an
obstacle for new
entrants to enter the
market and beat
existing companies in
terms of brand image.
2. The qualified staff of
16200 is a strength of
the hospital that helps
to beat with the
competitors (Salavou,
2015).
Opportunity
1. Expansion of
services
WO
1. The hospital can use
the high capital for
expansion the
SO
1. The hospital have to
expand the business
at the international

BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT 7
services at the
international level
(Phadermrod,
Crowder, & Wills,
2019).
level by using its
strength of brand
image
Recommendation
Market penetration
As per the above discussion, it is observed that the organisation present in the limited areas. It
is recommended that the hospital has to expand the business at the international level so that
they can provide the services to large number of people. It has to enter the new market with
the existing services and the qualified staff (Schawel, and Billing, 2018).
Seminars and meetings
The hospital has to organise the different seminars and meetings to provide free services to
large number of people so; that the government of the country also support it to expand the
business in order to invest in it. The organising seminars and meetings also spread the
awareness among the people. It reduces the challenge which is faced by the society due to
economic issues.
Conclusion
At the end of the report, it is concluded that the hospital has the opportunity to expand the
business as it have high brand image in its country. The charitable and women services
provided by the consumer help the organisation to attain the success in industry. The hospital
faces the challenges during the Brexit in financial terms. It is recommended that the hospital

BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT 8
has to adopt the market penetration strategy in order to expand the business. Reducing the
challenge it requires the support of government that can be attain by building the relation
with the government. Orgainising seminars and meetings for providing free services besides
the government help to build the relation with government. It is concluded that the company
attain the success in near future.

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References
FT. com (2018) The UK economy at a glance. [online] Available from:
https://ig.ft.com/sites/numbers/economies/uk/ [Accessed 9/04/19].
Guys and St. Thomas. (2018) About the Trust. [online] Available from:
https://www.guysandstthomas.nhs.uk/about-us/who-we-are/facts-figures.aspx [Accessed
9/04/19].
NHS. (2018) Overview. [online] Available from:
https://www.nhs.uk/Services/hospitals/Overview/DefaultView.aspx?id=970 [Accessed
9/04/19].
Phadermrod, B., Crowder, R. M., & Wills, G. B. (2019) Importance-performance analysis
based SWOT analysis. International Journal of Information Management, 44, pp. 194-203.
Salavou, H. E. (2015). Competitive strategies and their shift to the future. European Business
Review, 27(1), 80-99.
Schawel, C. and Billing, F. (2018) Ansoff-Matrix. In Top 100 Management Tools (pp. 31-
33). Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden.
The Kings Fund. (2016) Five big issues for health and social care after the Brexit vote.
[online] Available from: https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/articles/brexit-and-nhs
[Accessed 9/04/19].
UK Government. (2018) UK Technology: at a glance. [online] Available from:
https://invest.great.gov.uk/industries/technology/ [Accessed 9/04/19].