Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality
For generations, the model for receiving health care services in the developed world has been straightforward. It starts with showing your insurance card at the reception desk and ends with a 10-minute examination/discussion with a doctor. In developing countries, this model is structurally untenable: according to the World Health Organization, there is a global shortage of four million health care providers, and in 57 countries, this amounts to a crisis. The authors present several new models for delivering health care services in developing countries that use ICT (information and communication technologies)-i.e., cell phones, tablets and computers. It is only a matter of time, they say, before these models spread to more resource-rich settings.
Authors :: John A. MacDonald, Anita M. McGahan, Will Mitchell
Swot Analysis of "Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality" written by John A. MacDonald, Anita M. McGahan, Will Mitchell includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Health Care facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Health Care, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Health Care 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 Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Health Care
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 Health Care
Strengths Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Health Care in Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– Health Care is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by John A. MacDonald, Anita M. McGahan, Will Mitchell 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Health Care is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Health Care 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.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Health Care digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Health Care 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.
High brand equity
– Health Care has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Health Care to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Health Care has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality 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.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Health Care 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 Health Care in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Health Care to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Health Care to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Health Care is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Health Care in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Health Care is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality 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.
Weaknesses Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality 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 Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Health Care is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Health Care products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Health Care needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Health Care 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Health Care 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Health Care 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality, in the dynamic environment Health Care has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Health Care has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Health Care 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Health Care 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, John A. MacDonald, Anita M. McGahan, Will Mitchell suggests that, Health Care 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Health Care is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality 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 Health Care 's lucrative customers.
Opportunities Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality | 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 Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Health Care 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 Health Care to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Health Care 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Health Care to increase its market reach. Health Care 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Health Care can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Health Care 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
– Health Care 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 Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Health Care to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Health Care can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Health Care is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality 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.
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 Health Care to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Health Care has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Health Care to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality case study. Health Care can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Health Care 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Health Care 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Health Care 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, Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality are -
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. Health Care 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.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Health Care needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Health Care business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Health Care 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 Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Health Care has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Health Care 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.
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.
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 Health Care in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Health Care 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.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Health Care.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality, Health Care 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 .
Environmental challenges
– Health Care 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. Health Care can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Health Care 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality 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 Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality 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 Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality 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 Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality 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 Health Care Access for All: Making the Dream a Reality 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 Health Care needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.