British National Health Service Reform SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of British National Health Service Reform
In 2012, a highly controversial bill was passed that called for major reform and restructuring of Britain's government healthcare system, the National Health Service. Public opinion of the reform was both highly polarized and volatile. The Secretary of State for Health faces two tasks: addressing key issues to ensure successful implementation of the reforms and developing a plan to ensure both long-term and short-term success.
Authors :: Anne Snowdon, Alexander Smith, Luca Pisterzi
Swot Analysis of "British National Health Service Reform" written by Anne Snowdon, Alexander Smith, Luca Pisterzi includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Reform Health facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in British National Health Service Reform case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Policy and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the British National Health Service Reform casestudy better are - – technology disruption, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of British National Health Service Reform
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in British National Health Service Reform case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Reform Health, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Reform Health 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 British National Health Service Reform can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in British National Health Service Reform case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Reform Health
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 Reform Health
Strengths British National Health Service Reform | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Reform Health in British National Health Service Reform Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Reform Health is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the British National Health Service Reform are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Strong track record of project management
– Reform Health is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Reform Health 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.
Training and development
– Reform Health has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in British National Health Service Reform 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Reform Health 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 British National Health Service Reform - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Reform Health 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 British National Health Service Reform HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Reform Health in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Reform Health 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.
Organizational Resilience of Reform Health
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Reform Health does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Reform Health digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Reform Health 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
- Reform Health 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 Reform Health is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in British National Health Service Reform Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Reform Health is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in British National Health Service Reform Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses British National Health Service Reform | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of British National Health Service Reform are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As British National Health Service Reform HBR case study mentions - Reform Health 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study British National Health Service Reform, 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Reform Health 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Reform Health is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Reform Health needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Reform Health to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Reform Health, firm in the HBR case study British National Health Service Reform needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study British National Health Service Reform, in the dynamic environment Reform Health has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Reform Health has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Reform Health 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. Reform Health 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 Reform Health 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study British National Health Service Reform, is just above the industry average. Reform Health 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Reform Health products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Reform Health needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
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 Reform Health supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - British National Health Service Reform, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Reform Health vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Opportunities British National Health Service Reform | 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 British National Health Service Reform are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Reform Health 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Strategy & Execution industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Reform Health 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. Reform Health 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Reform Health 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Reform Health can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Reform Health in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Strategy & Execution segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Reform Health is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. British National Health Service Reform 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Reform Health 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, Reform Health can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Reform Health operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Reform Health 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Reform Health has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Reform Health to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the British National Health Service Reform case study. Reform Health can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Reform Health 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.
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. Reform Health can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Reform Health 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 British National Health Service Reform - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Reform Health to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats British National Health Service Reform External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study British National Health Service Reform are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Reform Health 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.
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 Reform Health.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Reform Health 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Reform Health 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 Strategy & Execution industry regulations.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Reform Health has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Reform Health 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Reform Health is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Reform Health with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Reform Health 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Reform Health 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.
Increasing wage structure of Reform Health
– 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 Reform Health.
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 Reform Health business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of British National Health Service Reform 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 British National Health Service Reform 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 British National Health Service Reform 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 British National Health Service Reform 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 British National Health Service Reform 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 Reform Health needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
