With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants
Dr. Juan Caicedo was educated in general medicine and surgery at Universidad Nacional de Colombia and practiced transplant medicine in Bogota. He determined that he would need to go to the United States to advance his training, and ultimately was awarded a fellowship in transplant surgery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. During his three years as a fellow, Caicedo was struck by the number of Hispanic patients on the kidney transplant waiting list. Not only were Hispanics the highest growth group on the transplant waiting list, they also waited longer for transplants and died while waiting at higher rates than non-Hispanic whites or African-Americans. Caicedo also was alarmed by Hispanic patients' lower utilization of living donors for transplantation-they were underrepresented not only as live donor transplant patients, but also as donors. As he neared the end of his fellowship in 2006, Caicedo wondered if the Hispanic population encountered unique barriers to transplantation and living donor usage, and began to think about creating a program to address these barriers.
Swot Analysis of "With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants" written by Julie Hennessy includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Transplant Caicedo facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Customer service, Innovation, Market research, Social responsibility, Supply chain and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Transplant Caicedo, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Transplant Caicedo 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 With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Transplant Caicedo
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 Transplant Caicedo
Strengths With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Transplant Caicedo in With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants Harvard Business Review case study are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Transplant Caicedo is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants 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.
High brand equity
– Transplant Caicedo has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Transplant Caicedo to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Transplant Caicedo has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Transplant Caicedo 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 With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Transplant Caicedo 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Transplant Caicedo 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
– Transplant Caicedo 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 Julie Hennessy 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
- Transplant Caicedo 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 Transplant Caicedo is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Transplant Caicedo digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Transplant Caicedo 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Transplant Caicedo is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Transplant Caicedo in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Transplant Caicedo 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 With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants, it seems that the employees of Transplant Caicedo 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 star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants 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 Transplant Caicedo has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants, in the dynamic environment Transplant Caicedo has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Transplant Caicedo has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Transplant Caicedo products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Transplant Caicedo needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants HBR case study mentions - Transplant Caicedo 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Transplant Caicedo 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Transplant Caicedo 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants, is just above the industry average. Transplant Caicedo needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Transplant Caicedo is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Transplant Caicedo needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Transplant Caicedo to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Transplant Caicedo 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. Transplant Caicedo 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Transplant Caicedo 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 - With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Opportunities With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants | 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 With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Transplant Caicedo 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 With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Transplant Caicedo to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Transplant Caicedo can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Transplant Caicedo 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Sales & Marketing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Transplant Caicedo 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. Transplant Caicedo 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Transplant Caicedo 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, With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Transplant Caicedo can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Transplant Caicedo can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Transplant Caicedo can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Transplant Caicedo operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Transplant Caicedo in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Sales & Marketing segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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 Transplant Caicedo 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Transplant Caicedo 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 Transplant Caicedo to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Transplant Caicedo 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 Sales & Marketing segment.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Transplant Caicedo has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Transplant Caicedo to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants case study. Transplant Caicedo can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants are -
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. Transplant Caicedo 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 Transplant Caicedo 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Transplant Caicedo 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 With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants .
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 Transplant Caicedo.
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.
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 Transplant Caicedo business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Transplant Caicedo 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Transplant Caicedo has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Transplant Caicedo 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Transplant Caicedo with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing wage structure of Transplant Caicedo
– 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 Transplant Caicedo.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants, Transplant Caicedo 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 .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Transplant Caicedo in the Sales & Marketing industry. The Sales & Marketing 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants 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 With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants 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 With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants 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 With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants 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 With a Little Help from "Nuestros Amigos": Hispanics and Kidney Transplants 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 Transplant Caicedo needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
