Dental observe technique, Pt. 2: From SWOT to TOWS

In part one of this two-part weblog collection, we mentioned the fundamentals of performing a SWOT evaluation at your dental observe to help in creating a plan that leverages each reactive and proactive enterprise methods. Acknowledged merely, a SWOT evaluation seems to be at 4 key areas of your online business: Strengths, Weaknesses, Alternatives and Threats. Learn extra about the way to carry out a SWOT evaluation in our previous post.

Partly two of this collection, we’ll look at how a SWOT evaluation would possibly look by means of the lens of COVID-19 as a sensible utility, the way to apply the learnings of your SWOT evaluation and the way a TOWS matrix can assist you additional join the dots.

COVID-19’s position

Have a look at your SWOT by means of the lens of COVID-19. As an illustration, what did your observe do nicely when the pandemic hit? What do you want you’d performed higher? Additionally check out your staff’s gentle abilities, similar to empathy. Is that this the time to have them do extra coaching?

What are you able to do now to arrange for one more well being disaster? Do you’ve got the appropriate know-how in place?

What did different practices do that you could be need to emulate?

Now take into consideration what threats COVID-19 posed to the enterprise surroundings. What would you do in a different way in an identical state of affairs? What didn’t you want, and vice versa?

Utilizing your SWOT

Now that you simply’ve compiled all this data, what do you do with it? Each observe’s breakdown will look completely different, however your marketing strategy ought to maximize what’s working nicely and what’s doable for the longer term and in addition actively mitigate the affect of exterior forces.

Use the threats you recognized to develop or refine your continuity plan. When you have an outdated plan, it may not seize a course of for coping with a pandemic. Disaster planning might be uncomfortable, however having a plan might be invaluable when an precise disaster occurs.

Your SWOT evaluation shouldn’t be a one-and-done train. The enterprise surroundings is consistently altering, and you’ll have personnel and different modifications that affect the content material in your packing containers. Do your first SWOT evaluation to get a baseline, making subsequent analyses simpler.

Assist your online business thrive

No matter your particular person findings, the general advantages of a SWOT evaluation embrace extra transparency in your observe and the market, useful conversations and alternatives to refine what makes your observe distinctive. It may be one of the necessary belongings you do to assist your online business thrive.

From SWOT to TOWS

For those who’re already acquainted with SWOT evaluation or discover the idea pretty easy, extra superior and synergistic methods to take a look at this data and enhance its worth exist. For instance, a TOWS (the inverse acronym of SWOT) matrix will aid you join the dots between the packing containers.

To conduct a TOWS, full your SWOT evaluation after which choose any of the 2 packing containers to see how one class can help one other. As an illustration:

• Strengths and Alternatives: Have a look at each of the left-hand classes. How are you going to benefit from the alternatives accessible by utilizing the strengths of your individuals and observe? For instance, possibly a clinician in your observe enjoys and excels at medical analysis – that’s an important power. In the meantime, a possibility in your record is an upcoming convention. May your clinician communicate on the convention, or a minimum of attend the occasion to start out making connections to have the ability to communicate sooner or later? Alternatively, may analysis that the clinician is doing be become an article or video that additionally promotes the observe?
• Strengths and Threats: Figuring out your threats is a key step, however the actual worth is in realizing how you should utilize your strengths to handle them. As an illustration, you’ll have discovered that your recordsdata had been arduous to entry through the peak of the pandemic when your staff was unexpectedly off-site. Nonetheless, throughout your SWOT train, you discovered that a few of your workers members are know-how whizzes. Leverage these abilities and have them again up your recordsdata or use their experience to guage distributors who can present that service.
• Weaknesses and Alternatives: In your SWOT, you’ll have recognized abilities that your staff is lacking, however maybe you additionally listed that you simply anticipate increasing and making some new hires quickly. When it’s time to convey on new workers members, you’ll have a greater sense of what key abilities these staff ought to have. If the growth is simply too far off, think about coaching present workers.
• Weaknesses and Threats: This one might be an uncomfortable train. Nonetheless, in case your observe is in monetary bother, taking a look at these challenges objectively can assist you’ve got a extra productive dialog.

Hopefully now you’ve got a superb understanding of the way to carry out a SWOT evaluation and the way to apply the findings to create a enterprise technique to your dental observe. Whereas it is a nice train for gaining insights that will in any other case go unnoticed inside your observe, keep in mind to additionally attain out to a mentor or one other colleague to see in the event that they’ve performed a SWOT evaluation and in the event that they’d be prepared to assist in the method.

References

Farran H. The SWOT analysis. Dentaltown. February 2013.

Forsyth J. The importance of SWOT analysis in dental practices. DentistryIQ. January 27, 2015.

Peters B. Why complete a SWOT analysis for my dental practice? Oral Well being Group. June 30, 2021.

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This text was first revealed within the Fall 2021 problem of Benefit journal. Learn the unique article here.

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Patterson Dental

At Patterson Dental, we’re dedicated to partnering with dental practices of all sizes to assist oral well being professionals observe extraordinary dentistry. We do that by residing as much as our promise of Trusted Experience, Unmatched Assist on daily basis.