In-Depth SWOT Analysis of Aster DM Healthcare – A Publicly Traded Indian Conglomerate Health Care Provider

Quick Stats on Aster DM Healthcare

Founder	Azad Moopen
Year Founded	1987
Origin	Dubai, UAE
No. of Employees	38,000+
Company Type	Public
Market Cap	Rs 8,626 Crore (2022)
Annual Revenue	US$5.08 Billion (2019)
Net Income/ Profit	US$490.8 Million (2019)

 

Services by Aster DM Healthcare

• Hospitals
• Diagnostic Centres
• Medical Centres
• Pharmacies
• Healthcare Verticals
• Clinics
• Healthcare Consultancy Service

Competitors of Aster DM Healthcare

Following are the close competitors of Aster DM Healthcare Ltd.

• Apollo hospitals enterprise ltd.
• Dolphin medical services ltd.
• ANG Lifesciences India Ltd.
• Fortis healthcare ltd.
• Healthcare global enterprise ltd.

As we are clear about the foundations of Aster DM Healthcare, let’s move on to the SWOT analysis of Aster DM Healthcare.

SWOT Analysis of Aster DM Healthcare

SWOT stands for strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats which is an analytical technique used for assessing your business in the four aspects. SWOT analysis is simple to analyse and determine what is best for the company at present as well as to formulate a successful strategy for the future. Accordingly, the SWOT analysis of Aster DM Healthcare is carried out.

To better understand the SWOT analysis of Aster DM Healthcare, refer to the infographics image below.

Let’s first start by analysing the strength of Aster DM Healthcare from the SWOT analysis of Aster DM Healthcare.

Strengths of Aster DM Healthcare

Strengths are defined as what each business does or has best in itself. Following are the strengths of Aster DM Healthcare Ltd

• Faster Growth: Aster DM Healthcare has seen faster growth within 35 years of time. It started as a single healthcare clinic and today it is a developed healthcare institute with 377 establishments across 8 countries. 
• Manpower: Aster DM Healthcare makes sure to hire the best talent across the country and incentivize them accordingly. Hiring the right people definitely gives cutting-edge competition to other firms.

(Aster DM Healthcare Announce 7 Year Partnership with Siemens, Source: Gulfbusiness)

• Strategic Partnership: Aster DM Healthcare’s deputy managing director – Ms Alisha Moopen has signed a seven-year partnership with Siemens to upgrade its systems, develop further digital offerings, and support in training and capacity building in its Gulf region and Indian outlets.

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• Broad Portfolio: A leading healthcare provider in GCC – Aster DM Healthcare Group – operates 27 hospitals, 118 medical clinics, 66 labs and patient experience centres, and 323 pharmacies in the Gulf plus India region.
• Brand Ambassador: Sachin Tendulkar an Indian cricketer had been the brand ambassador of Aster DM Healthcare and Aster’s CSR activities. He also inaugurated Aster DM Healthcare’s 150th pharmacy in Abu Dhabi in 2015. Having him as a brand ambassador has given Aster DM Healthcare strong recognition in the market. 
• CSR Activities: Aster DM Healthcare did lots of CSR activities in its course of journey. Aster DM volunteer group has created a very positive impact on the lives of over a million people including a variety of projects in the areas of community development & support, medical & wellness, international aid, disaster recovery, child health, and disabled community empowerment. These initiatives have given Aster DM Healthcare a positive image in the market and subsidies from the government.
• Focus on Strategy: Aster DM Healthcare was established with the ambition to provide first-class healthcare services and make pharmaceutical products available to people at reasonable prices and still the company continues to work on its vision. 

Weaknesses of Aster DM Healthcare

Aster DM Healthcare should focus on improving its flaws to retain its brand name in the market. Following listed are the weaknesses of Aster DM Healthcare

• Acquired Stake: Olympus Capital Holdings Asia bought a minority stake in Aster DM Healthcare for about $100 million in 2012 and this made Olympus Capital Holdings the largest external investor at Aster DM Healthcare.
• Less Awareness: The general public uses medicines of Aster DM Healthcare as prescribed by the doctor, but they are not aware of which brand’s medicine they are consuming. For Instance, Cipla spends heavily on advertising, so the brand’s name has reached the ears of all the Indian households.
• Compliance to Principles: The firm functions in such a sector in which it has to function beneath specific regulations and limitations which can be a difficult and expensive matter for Aster DM Healthcare.
• Employee Overheads: Aster DM Healthcare is a labour-intensive business because pharma is a research-intensive domain. It contains highly skilled experts and handling them is not an easy chore.
• Limited Success Beyond Core Business: Despite being one of the industry’s leading healthcare companies, Aster DM Healthcare has struggled to expand into other product sectors due to its current culture.

Opportunities for Aster DM Healthcare

Aster DM Healthcare should have an eye on exploiting the external opportunities in order to gain an advantage from them. A few of these are listed below:

• Enter New Market: The government has created barriers for new entrants in the field of BioTechnology and Drugs Industry, Aster DM Healthcare should seize the opportunity and try to increase its pharmacy business footprint.
• Policy Reform:  According to some experts and reviews, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA Act) passed by the US government will open a new set of reforms that will favour the pharma companies dealing with generic drugs. If this news is true, it will benefit Aster DM Healthcare to a big extent.
• New Technologies: Aster DM Healthcare may use the new technologies to implement a differentiated pricing approach in the new market. It will allow the company to keep its current consumers by providing excellent service while also attracting new customers through various value-oriented offers.
• The Utilisation of Global Brand Position: Over the years, Aster DM Healthcare has gained a global market stand or goodwill worldwide. This can help the company by utilisation of the global brand positioning and expanding it towards the other potential markets.
• Backward Integration: Aster DM Healthcare should focus on creating raw materials for the medicines themselves to increase its profit margin.
• Patient-driven Health Care: The trends are indicating more patient-centric treatment with the growth in demand for wearable biometric devices and telemedicine. This will increase the patient’s involvement level which will benefit the business if properly researched.

Threats to Aster DM Healthcare

Aster DM Healthcare should try to remove the external threats as they have a vital role in creating hindrance to the growth of a firm. The threats of Aster DM Healthcare are

• Political Instability: Hefty taxation and an unstable political environment limit an organisation to achieve heights of prosperity.
• Government Intervention: Medical care administrations are heavily controlled by the government in various nations including the U.S.
• Commodification: For those working in the Healthcare Industry, commoditization has a negative effect because it doesn’t let the manufacturer charge a profitable fee for what they produce.
• Competition: Aster DM Healthcare has been under excessive competition from Fortis healthcare and Apollo hospitals enterprise.
• High Prices: Medical and pharmaceutical companies require various chemical compositions which can result in high priced drugs. This can limit the expansion in various Asian and African countries with low per capita income.
• Counterfeit Drugs: Aster DM Healthcare product is also vulnerable to counterfeit and low-quality product imitation, particularly in emerging and low-income regions.
• The Growing Technological Expertise of Local Players in the Export Market: One of the biggest threats of tie-up with the local players in the export market for Aster DM Healthcare is the threat of losing IPR. The intellectual property rights framework is not very strong in emerging markets, especially in China.

This ends our detailed SWOT analysis of Aster DM Healthcare. Let us conclude our learning below.