Duke Heart Failure Program SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Technology & Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Duke Heart Failure Program
Duke University Health System has for the past five years operated a specialized clinic for the management of congestive heart failure, a very common and costly condition in the surrounding community. Nurse practitioners, whose work is guided by highly specified protocols and overseen by cardiologists, staff the multidisciplinary clinic. The chancellor of the health system views the program as a huge financial burden and an undesirable use of academic cardiologists' time. The case examines models of disease management; Duke's heart failure program operations, finances, and outcomes of disease management; and the relationship between its nurse practitioners and cardiologists.
Swot Analysis of "Duke Heart Failure Program" written by Richard Bohmer, Laura R. Feldman includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Cardiologists Heart facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Duke Heart Failure Program case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial management, Leading teams, Supply chain and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Duke Heart Failure Program casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions, there is backlash against globalization,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Duke Heart Failure Program
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Duke Heart Failure Program case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cardiologists Heart, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cardiologists Heart 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 Duke Heart Failure Program can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Duke Heart Failure Program case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cardiologists Heart
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Technology & Operations field.
4. Making a Technology & Operations topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Cardiologists Heart
Strengths Duke Heart Failure Program | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cardiologists Heart in Duke Heart Failure Program Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Cardiologists Heart 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 Cardiologists Heart 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Cardiologists Heart 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 Duke Heart Failure Program - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Duke Heart Failure Program 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Cardiologists Heart is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Duke Heart Failure Program are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Learning organization
- Cardiologists Heart 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 Cardiologists Heart is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Duke Heart Failure Program Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Cardiologists Heart 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 Duke Heart Failure Program HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Cardiologists Heart is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Duke Heart Failure Program 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.
Ability to lead change in Technology & Operations field
– Cardiologists Heart 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 Cardiologists Heart in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Technology & Operations segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Cardiologists Heart digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Cardiologists Heart 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Cardiologists Heart has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Cardiologists Heart 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Technology & Operations industry
– Duke Heart Failure Program firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Cardiologists Heart to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Technology & Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Cardiologists Heart to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses Duke Heart Failure Program | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Duke Heart Failure Program are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Cardiologists Heart is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Technology & Operations segment. Cardiologists Heart needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Cardiologists Heart to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Cardiologists Heart 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Cardiologists Heart 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Cardiologists Heart 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. Cardiologists Heart 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Duke Heart Failure Program, in the dynamic environment Cardiologists Heart has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Cardiologists Heart has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Cardiologists Heart, firm in the HBR case study Duke Heart Failure Program needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Duke Heart Failure Program 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 Cardiologists Heart has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Duke Heart Failure Program, is just above the industry average. Cardiologists Heart 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Duke Heart Failure Program 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 Duke Heart Failure Program can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Cardiologists Heart is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Richard Bohmer, Laura R. Feldman suggests that, Cardiologists Heart 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Cardiologists Heart products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Cardiologists Heart needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities Duke Heart Failure Program | 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 Duke Heart Failure Program are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Cardiologists Heart to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Cardiologists Heart 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, Duke Heart Failure Program, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Cardiologists Heart in the consumer business. Now Cardiologists Heart can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Technology & Operations industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Cardiologists Heart 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. Cardiologists Heart 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Cardiologists Heart in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Technology & Operations segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Cardiologists Heart to increase its market reach. Cardiologists Heart 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Cardiologists Heart 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 Cardiologists Heart to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Cardiologists Heart 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Cardiologists Heart is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Duke Heart Failure Program 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Cardiologists Heart can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Cardiologists Heart operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Technology & Operations sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Cardiologists Heart 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 Duke Heart Failure Program - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Cardiologists Heart 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 Cardiologists Heart 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
– Cardiologists Heart can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Technology & Operations 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.
Threats Duke Heart Failure Program External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Duke Heart Failure Program are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Cardiologists Heart 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 Duke Heart Failure Program .
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Cardiologists Heart 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Cardiologists Heart 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Cardiologists Heart with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Cardiologists Heart in the Technology & Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Cardiologists Heart 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.
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 Cardiologists Heart business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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.
Increasing wage structure of Cardiologists Heart
– 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 Cardiologists Heart.
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 Cardiologists Heart.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Technology & Operations field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Cardiologists Heart can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Cardiologists Heart 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. Cardiologists Heart can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Duke Heart Failure Program 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 Duke Heart Failure Program 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 Duke Heart Failure Program 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 Duke Heart Failure Program 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 Duke Heart Failure Program 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 Cardiologists Heart needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.