Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Technology & Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry
Mount Auburn Hospital is preparing to introduce a physician order entry (POE) system throughout the hospital, starting with the labor and delivery ward. POE systems replace paper-based and oral medication ordering processes with an information system; the physician uses the system to enter medication orders, which are then transferred to the hospital's pharmacy. This is Mount Auburn's first experience with POE systems, and the implementation team must determine how best to introduce the technology to the physicians and other personnel who will use it.
Authors :: Andrew McAfee, Sarah MacGregor, Michael Benari
Swot Analysis of "Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry" written by Andrew McAfee, Sarah MacGregor, Michael Benari includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Poe Mount facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Change management, Health, Innovation, IT, Strategy execution and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry casestudy better are - – increasing energy prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Poe Mount, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Poe Mount 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 Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Poe Mount
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 Poe Mount
Strengths Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Poe Mount in Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry Harvard Business Review case study are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Technology & Operations industry
– Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Poe Mount to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Technology & Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Poe Mount to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Poe Mount is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Ability to lead change in Technology & Operations field
– Poe Mount 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 Poe Mount in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Poe Mount in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Poe Mount
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Poe Mount does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Poe Mount in the sector have low bargaining power. Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Poe Mount to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management
– Poe Mount is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Poe Mount 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 Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Poe Mount has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry 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.
Learning organization
- Poe Mount 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 Poe Mount is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Poe Mount 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.
Weaknesses Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry are -
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Technology & Operations 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Poe Mount is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Technology & Operations segment. Poe Mount needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Poe Mount to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Poe Mount, firm in the HBR case study Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Poe Mount is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Poe Mount products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Poe Mount needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Poe Mount 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, Andrew McAfee, Sarah MacGregor, Michael Benari suggests that, Poe Mount 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry, in the dynamic environment Poe Mount has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Poe Mount has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Poe Mount 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, Poe Mount 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. Poe Mount 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry 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 Poe Mount has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry | 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 Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Poe Mount 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 Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Poe Mount to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Poe Mount is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Poe Mount 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 Technology & Operations segment.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Poe Mount to increase its market reach. Poe Mount 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Poe Mount 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
– Poe Mount 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Poe Mount can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Poe Mount operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Technology & Operations sector.
Manufacturing automation
– Poe Mount 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.
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. Poe Mount can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Poe Mount 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.
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. Poe Mount 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. Poe Mount 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Technology & Operations industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Poe Mount can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Poe Mount 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.
Threats Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry are -
Increasing wage structure of Poe Mount
– 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 Poe Mount.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Poe Mount has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Technology & Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Poe Mount needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Technology & Operations 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.
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 Poe Mount business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Poe Mount in the Technology & Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Poe Mount 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.
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. Poe Mount needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Technology & Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Poe Mount 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.
Environmental challenges
– Poe Mount 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. Poe Mount can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
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. Poe Mount 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Poe Mount 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 Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry .
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry, Poe Mount may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Technology & Operations .
Regulatory challenges
– Poe Mount 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 Technology & Operations industry regulations.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Poe Mount is facing in Technology & Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry 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 Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry 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 Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry 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 Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry 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 Mount Auburn Hospital: Physician Order Entry 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 Poe Mount needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
