Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Finance & Accounting
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices
Describes the long waiting time experienced by customers in Health Stops and asks students to specify the changes in its business model which could help solve the problem.
Swot Analysis of "Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices" written by Regina E. Herzlinger includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Stops Health facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Customers, Financial management, Health and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Stops Health, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Stops Health 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 Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Stops Health
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Finance & Accounting field.
4. Making a Finance & Accounting topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Stops Health
Strengths Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Stops Health in Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– Stops Health is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Stops Health has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Stops Health 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 Stops Health
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Stops Health does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Stops Health in the sector have low bargaining power. Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Stops Health to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Stops Health is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices case study 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Finance & Accounting industry
– Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Stops Health to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Stops Health to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Stops Health is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Innovation driven organization
– Stops Health is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Digital Transformation in Finance & Accounting segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Stops Health digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Stops Health 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.
Learning organization
- Stops Health 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 Stops Health is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Stops Health has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Stops Health 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices HBR case study mentions - Stops Health takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Stops Health has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Stops Health has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Stops Health, firm in the HBR case study Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Stops Health products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Stops Health needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Stops Health has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Stops Health has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Stops Health needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Stops Health has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Finance & Accounting strategy. 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.
Opportunities Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Stops Health has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Stops Health to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Stops Health 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.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Stops Health can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Stops Health can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Stops Health 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Finance & Accounting industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Stops Health can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Stops Health can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Stops Health in the consumer business. Now Stops Health can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Stops Health has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Stops Health to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices case study. Stops Health can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Stops Health 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Finance & Accounting industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Stops Health can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Stops Health can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Stops Health 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Stops Health in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Finance & Accounting segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices are -
Environmental challenges
– Stops Health needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Stops Health can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Stops Health 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 prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices .
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 Stops Health.
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. Stops Health needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Finance & Accounting industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Stops Health demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
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 Stops Health in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Finance & Accounting field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Stops Health can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Stops Health is facing in Finance & Accounting sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Stops Health 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Stops Health with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Stops Health 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.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Stops Health
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Stops Health.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices 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 the case study Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices 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 the Harvard case study Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices 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 Health Stop (B): The Medical Offices is 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 Stops Health needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.