Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities
Labor-management cooperation has been regarded for many years as a panacea for organizations' competitive woes. The academic and popular presses have lauded the joint efforts of companies and their unionized workforces to come together to solve companies' competitive problems while saving employees' jobs. Moreover, research on and examples of labor-management cooperation have found that through joint efforts, unions and firms can improve organizational performance and employee outcomes. Increasingly, however, it appears that cooperation is often but a short-lived phenomenon. This article examines a major initiative of labor-management cooperation that was undertaken to facilitate the fundamental restructuring of the health care delivery system in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. For 10 years, management of more than a dozen hospitals and representatives of the Minnesota Nurses' Association came together to negotiate and manage the process of system integration, rationalization, and delivery improvement. The results were remarkable. Yet, just a few years later, despite the success, only remnants of labor-management cooperation remain in these hospitals. This article examines the reasons for this demise and provides lessons for those engaged in cooperative undertakings that may help extend the life of those initiatives.
Swot Analysis of "Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities" written by Gil Preuss, Ann C. Frost includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Cooperation Labor facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Negotiations, Performance measurement and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities casestudy better are - – technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cooperation Labor, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cooperation Labor 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 Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cooperation Labor
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 Cooperation Labor
Strengths Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cooperation Labor in Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Cooperation Labor
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Cooperation Labor does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Cooperation Labor in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Cooperation Labor are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Cooperation Labor 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 Cooperation Labor is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Cooperation Labor to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Cooperation Labor to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Cooperation Labor 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.
Analytics focus
– Cooperation Labor is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Gil Preuss, Ann C. Frost can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Cooperation Labor in the sector have low bargaining power. Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Cooperation Labor to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management
– Cooperation Labor 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
– Cooperation Labor 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 Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Cooperation Labor is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities 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.
Weaknesses Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities, it seems that the employees of Cooperation Labor don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
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 Cooperation Labor supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Cooperation Labor vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Cooperation Labor 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Gil Preuss, Ann C. Frost suggests that, Cooperation Labor is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Lack of clear differentiation of Cooperation Labor products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Cooperation Labor needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Cooperation Labor 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities, in the dynamic environment Cooperation Labor has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Cooperation Labor has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Cooperation Labor 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Cooperation Labor has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Cooperation Labor 's lucrative customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Cooperation Labor is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Organizational Development segment. Cooperation Labor needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Cooperation Labor to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities | 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 Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities are -
Loyalty marketing
– Cooperation Labor 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Cooperation Labor 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Cooperation Labor to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Cooperation Labor to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Cooperation Labor can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Cooperation Labor is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Organizational Development industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Cooperation Labor 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. Cooperation Labor 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Cooperation Labor 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Cooperation Labor 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Cooperation Labor in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Organizational Development segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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 Cooperation Labor in the consumer business. Now Cooperation Labor can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Cooperation Labor 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, Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Cooperation Labor has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Cooperation Labor to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities case study. Cooperation Labor can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Cooperation Labor can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Cooperation Labor operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Threats Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities are -
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Cooperation Labor has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Cooperation Labor needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Organizational Development sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities, Cooperation Labor may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Organizational Development .
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Cooperation Labor 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Cooperation Labor in the Organizational Development industry. The Organizational Development industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
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 Cooperation Labor in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Organizational Development field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Cooperation Labor 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 Cooperation Labor is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Cooperation Labor 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Cooperation Labor 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Cooperation Labor 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 Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities .
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.
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 Cooperation Labor.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities 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 Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities 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 Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities 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 Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities 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 Rise and Decline of Labor-Management Cooperation: Lessons from Health Care in the Twin Cities 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 Cooperation Labor needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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