Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center
To maximize their effectiveness, color cases should be printed in color.Considers the situation facing Gary Gottlieb, president of Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), prior to the opening of BWH's integrated cardiovascular center. This case allows students to develop an appreciation of the strategic, financial, organizational, clinical, and physical aspects of integrating health care delivery around specific categories of disease. It provides an opportunity to evaluate BWH's approach to integration along all of these dimensions and to identify the nature of the tradeoffs that hospitals--specifically, academic medical centers--face as they attempt to create disease-specific models of integrated care. Finally, students have the opportunity to evaluate the degree to which integrated models of care can be developed within academic medical centers.
Authors :: Michael E. Porter, Robert S. Huckman, Jeremy L. Friese
Swot Analysis of "Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center" written by Michael E. Porter, Robert S. Huckman, Jeremy L. Friese includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Bwh's Cardiovascular facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Mergers & acquisitions, Operations management, Organizational structure and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Bwh's Cardiovascular, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Bwh's Cardiovascular 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 Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Bwh's Cardiovascular
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Organizational Development field.
4. Making a Organizational Development topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Bwh's Cardiovascular
Strengths Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Bwh's Cardiovascular in Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Bwh's Cardiovascular has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Bwh's Cardiovascular to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Bwh's Cardiovascular is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Organizational Resilience of Bwh's Cardiovascular
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Bwh's Cardiovascular does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Bwh's Cardiovascular 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 Bwh's Cardiovascular is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Bwh's Cardiovascular 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 Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Bwh's Cardiovascular is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center 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 Organizational Development segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Bwh's Cardiovascular digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Bwh's Cardiovascular 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Bwh's Cardiovascular in the sector have low bargaining power. Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Bwh's Cardiovascular to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management
– Bwh's Cardiovascular is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Bwh's Cardiovascular has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Bwh's Cardiovascular has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Bwh's Cardiovascular in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Bwh's Cardiovascular 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. Bwh's Cardiovascular 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 harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Bwh's Cardiovascular is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Bwh's Cardiovascular is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Bwh's Cardiovascular is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Organizational Development segment. Bwh's Cardiovascular needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Bwh's Cardiovascular to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Bwh's Cardiovascular, firm in the HBR case study Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Bwh's Cardiovascular has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Bwh's Cardiovascular 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Bwh's Cardiovascular 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center HBR case study mentions - Bwh's Cardiovascular 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Organizational Development 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.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Bwh's Cardiovascular supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Bwh's Cardiovascular vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Opportunities Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center | 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 Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Organizational Development industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Bwh's Cardiovascular can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Buying journey improvements
– Bwh's Cardiovascular can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Bwh's Cardiovascular can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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 Bwh's Cardiovascular in the consumer business. Now Bwh's Cardiovascular can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Bwh's Cardiovascular 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Bwh's Cardiovascular to increase its market reach. Bwh's Cardiovascular will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Bwh's Cardiovascular is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Bwh's Cardiovascular 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, Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Developing new processes and practices
– Bwh's Cardiovascular can develop new processes and procedures in Organizational Development industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Bwh's Cardiovascular 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Bwh's Cardiovascular can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Bwh's Cardiovascular operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Bwh's Cardiovascular can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Organizational Development segment.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Bwh's Cardiovascular 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 Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Bwh's Cardiovascular to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center are -
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 Bwh's Cardiovascular.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Bwh's Cardiovascular 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.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Bwh's Cardiovascular 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.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
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 Bwh's Cardiovascular in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Bwh's Cardiovascular needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Organizational Development industry regulations.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Bwh's Cardiovascular can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Bwh's Cardiovascular 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 Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Bwh's Cardiovascular is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Bwh's Cardiovascular with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Bwh's Cardiovascular business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Bwh's Cardiovascular
– 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 Bwh's Cardiovascular.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center 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 Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center 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 Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center 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 Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center 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 Brigham and Women's Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center 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 Bwh's Cardiovascular needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
