Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic
A strong services brand is built and sustained primarily by customers' interactions with the provider. A services branding model depicts the dynamics of brand creation. From the interrelationships among the presented brand, external communications, and customers' experiences emerge brand awareness, meaning, and ultimately, equity. Illustrates the services branding model by showing how one organization has created, extended, and protected a powerful brand through an unwavering commitment to the well being of its customers. Managers outside of healthcare can benefit from three branding lessons embedded in the Mayo Clinic story: (1) attend to organizational values; (2) play defense, not just offense; and (3) turn customers into marketers.
Swot Analysis of "Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic" written by Leonard L. Berry, Kent D. Seltman includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Brand Mayo facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Supply chain and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Brand Mayo, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Brand Mayo 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 Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Brand Mayo
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Sales & Marketing field.
4. Making a Sales & Marketing topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Brand Mayo
Strengths Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Brand Mayo in Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Brand Mayo in the sector have low bargaining power. Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Brand Mayo to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Brand Mayo to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Brand Mayo to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Brand Mayo is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Brand Mayo in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Brand Mayo digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Brand Mayo 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
- Brand Mayo 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 Brand Mayo is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Brand Mayo has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Brand Mayo 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Brand Mayo 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 Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Brand Mayo 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 Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– Brand Mayo has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Brand Mayo to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Brand Mayo products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Brand Mayo needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Sales & Marketing 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Brand Mayo 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 Brand Mayo 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 - Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Need for greater diversity
– Brand Mayo 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Leonard L. Berry, Kent D. Seltman suggests that, Brand Mayo 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.
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 Brand Mayo supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Brand Mayo vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic, in the dynamic environment Brand Mayo has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Brand Mayo has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic 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 Brand Mayo has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Brand Mayo, firm in the HBR case study Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Brand Mayo is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Opportunities Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic | 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 Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Brand Mayo 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 Brand Mayo to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Brand Mayo can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Brand Mayo operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Brand Mayo 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Brand Mayo can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Brand Mayo can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Sales & Marketing segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Brand Mayo 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Brand Mayo 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, Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic, 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 Brand Mayo has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Brand Mayo to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic case study. Brand Mayo can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Brand Mayo can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Brand Mayo 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 Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Brand Mayo to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Brand Mayo to increase its market reach. Brand Mayo 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Sales & Marketing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Brand Mayo can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Brand Mayo 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.
Threats Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic are -
Regulatory challenges
– Brand Mayo 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 Sales & Marketing industry regulations.
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. Brand Mayo 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.
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 Brand Mayo.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Brand Mayo 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 Brand Mayo 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.
Environmental challenges
– Brand Mayo 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. Brand Mayo can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Brand Mayo has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Brand Mayo needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Sales & Marketing 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Brand Mayo 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.
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 Brand Mayo in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Brand Mayo with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Sales & Marketing field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Brand Mayo can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic, Brand Mayo may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Sales & Marketing .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic 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 Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic 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 Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic 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 Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic 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 Building a Strong Services Brand: Lessons from Mayo Clinic 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 Brand Mayo needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.