Case Study Description of QiLing Research Hospital
The QiLing Research Hospital (QiLing), located in Beijing, China, headed by Dr. Tien Tzu, CEO, is in a partnership with the China Research Network (CRN). This partnership was formed in an effort to mutually benefit both parties in terms of becoming a leader in health-care quality standards and creating more effective health-care techniques. Due to the intertwined nature of this relationship, the acquisition of human capital for specific positions within the hospital requires CRN to provide the candidates. Dr. Tien Tzu is increasingly concerned that CRN's hiring conditions are hindering QiLing's potential - specifically referencing the latest batch of candidates CRN has provided to fill a key spot in the neurology department. She is aware that the right people are the key to maintaining QiLing's growth and loyalty and has analyzed how the candidate selection process, overall compensation, and job retention efforts affect the quality of the human capital pool. She is entertaining thoughts about overhauling the process for the benefit of QiLing, and is unsure how CRN will respond to any proposals she might make.
Swot Analysis of "QiLing Research Hospital" written by John S. Haywood-Farmer, Kevin Leung includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Crn Qiling facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in QiLing Research Hospital case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Cross-cultural management, Developing employees, Strategic planning and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the QiLing Research Hospital casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of QiLing Research Hospital
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in QiLing Research Hospital case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Crn Qiling, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Crn Qiling 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 QiLing Research Hospital can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in QiLing Research Hospital case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Crn Qiling
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 Crn Qiling
Strengths QiLing Research Hospital | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Crn Qiling in QiLing Research Hospital Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Crn Qiling is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Crn Qiling in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Crn Qiling in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Crn Qiling has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Crn Qiling to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Crn Qiling has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in QiLing Research Hospital 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– QiLing Research Hospital firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Crn Qiling to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Crn Qiling to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Crn Qiling is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in Organizational Development segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Crn Qiling digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Crn Qiling 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Crn Qiling is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the QiLing Research Hospital are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Analytics focus
– Crn Qiling 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 John S. Haywood-Farmer, Kevin Leung 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.
Learning organization
- Crn Qiling 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 Crn Qiling is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in QiLing Research Hospital Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Crn Qiling 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Crn Qiling is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in QiLing Research Hospital Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses QiLing Research Hospital | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of QiLing Research Hospital are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study QiLing Research Hospital 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 QiLing Research Hospital can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Crn Qiling is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Crn Qiling 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. Crn Qiling 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Crn Qiling 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study QiLing Research Hospital, in the dynamic environment Crn Qiling has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Crn Qiling has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Crn Qiling, firm in the HBR case study QiLing Research Hospital needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study QiLing Research Hospital, it seems that the employees of Crn Qiling 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Crn Qiling 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 - QiLing Research Hospital 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, Crn Qiling 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 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 Crn Qiling supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - QiLing Research Hospital, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Crn Qiling vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Crn Qiling 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Crn Qiling is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Organizational Development segment. Crn Qiling needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Crn Qiling to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities QiLing Research Hospital | 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 QiLing Research Hospital are -
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. Crn Qiling 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. Crn Qiling 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Crn Qiling 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Crn Qiling 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 QiLing Research Hospital - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Crn Qiling to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Crn Qiling 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.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Crn Qiling to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Crn Qiling has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Crn Qiling to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the QiLing Research Hospital case study. Crn Qiling can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Crn Qiling 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
– Crn Qiling can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. QiLing Research Hospital 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Crn Qiling 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
– Crn Qiling 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Crn Qiling 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Crn Qiling is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. QiLing Research Hospital 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Crn Qiling can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats QiLing Research Hospital External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study QiLing Research Hospital are -
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. Crn Qiling needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Crn Qiling 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.
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.
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 Crn Qiling.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Crn Qiling 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.
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. Crn Qiling can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Crn Qiling 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, Crn Qiling 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 QiLing Research Hospital .
Regulatory challenges
– Crn Qiling 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Crn Qiling 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.
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 Crn Qiling business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Crn Qiling 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. Crn Qiling can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Crn Qiling with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of QiLing Research Hospital 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 QiLing Research Hospital 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 QiLing Research Hospital 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 QiLing Research Hospital 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 QiLing Research Hospital 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 Crn Qiling needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.