The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
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Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy
In 2009 Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) had been recognized as the best children's hospital in the country for six years in a row; but leadership saw CHOP as more than the large main campus in Western Philadelphia. Beginning in the 1990s, CHOP had created a large network of Primary Care Providers, Specialty Care Centers, Ambulatory Surgery Centers, and community hospital affiliations. CHOP leadership wanted to ensure that the quality they had demonstrated at CHOP would translate out to these facilities, and more, that the combination of many parts could actually work together to provide even better care than the main hospital could do on its own.
Authors :: Michael E. Porter, Carolyn A. Daly, Andrew Dervan
Swot Analysis of "The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy" written by Michael E. Porter, Carolyn A. Daly, Andrew Dervan includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Chop Philadelphia facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, IT, Organizational structure and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy casestudy better are - – increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Chop Philadelphia, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Chop Philadelphia 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 The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Chop Philadelphia
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Chop Philadelphia
Strengths The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Chop Philadelphia in The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– Chop Philadelphia is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Chop Philadelphia is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Learning organization
- Chop Philadelphia 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 Chop Philadelphia is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Chop Philadelphia in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Chop Philadelphia has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Chop Philadelphia to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy 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.
Organizational Resilience of Chop Philadelphia
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Chop Philadelphia does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Chop Philadelphia is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Chop Philadelphia has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Chop Philadelphia has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Chop Philadelphia digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Chop Philadelphia has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Chop Philadelphia in the sector have low bargaining power. The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Chop Philadelphia to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Chop Philadelphia 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 Chop Philadelphia in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Chop Philadelphia 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Michael E. Porter, Carolyn A. Daly, Andrew Dervan suggests that, Chop Philadelphia 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Chop Philadelphia 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy 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 Chop Philadelphia 's lucrative customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy 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 The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Chop Philadelphia is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy, it seems that the employees of Chop Philadelphia 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Chop Philadelphia 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Chop Philadelphia is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Strategy & Execution 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Chop Philadelphia 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Chop Philadelphia, firm in the HBR case study The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy | 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 The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Chop Philadelphia 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 The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Chop Philadelphia to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Chop Philadelphia to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Chop Philadelphia can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Chop Philadelphia operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Chop Philadelphia 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Chop Philadelphia 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 Chop Philadelphia to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Chop Philadelphia 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 Strategy & Execution segment.
Developing new processes and practices
– Chop Philadelphia can develop new processes and procedures in Strategy & Execution 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.
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 Chop Philadelphia in the consumer business. Now Chop Philadelphia can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Manufacturing automation
– Chop Philadelphia can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Strategy & Execution 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Chop Philadelphia 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Chop Philadelphia 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Strategy & Execution industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Chop Philadelphia can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Chop Philadelphia can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Chop Philadelphia 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 The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Chop Philadelphia 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.
Environmental challenges
– Chop Philadelphia 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. Chop Philadelphia can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Increasing wage structure of Chop Philadelphia
– 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 Chop Philadelphia.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Chop Philadelphia is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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. Chop Philadelphia 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Chop Philadelphia in the Strategy & Execution industry. The Strategy & Execution 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 Strategy & Execution field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Chop Philadelphia can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy, Chop Philadelphia may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Strategy & Execution .
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 Chop Philadelphia.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Chop Philadelphia has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Chop Philadelphia needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Strategy & Execution 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy 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 The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy 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 The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy 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 The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy 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 The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Network Strategy 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 Chop Philadelphia needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
