Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Technology & Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust
The Internet has proven to be a powerful and very popular vehicle for distributing health information to millions of individuals; it is interactive, user-controlled, and provides an effective means for communicating detailed information. While there has been increasing use of the Internet in healthcare, little research has been conducted to examine what, if any, impact the availability and integrity of healthcare information on the Internet has on the physician-patient relationship. Importantly, several studies show that Web-based health information frequently contains inaccurate or incomplete information. Patients who retain such information go so far as to suggest approaches to their physicians and express disappointment when the physicians refuse to prescribe as expected. For their part, doctors are concerned about the physician-patient relationship when they have to explain to patients that their Internet-based information is less than accurate; consequently, the physician-patient relationship is often affected. While many issues bear upon the physician-patient relationship, the central one is trust. Examines consumer use of the Internet for healthcare information, considers the problems caused by inaccuracies or omissions from third-party websites, and sets forth recommendations regarding how the Internet can be used to improve the physician-patient relationship. It is hoped that these suggestions provide a better understanding of the required components of upcoming healthcare strategies.
Authors :: S. Altan Erdem, L. Jean Harrison-Walker
Swot Analysis of "Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust" written by S. Altan Erdem, L. Jean Harrison-Walker includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Physician Patient facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Marketing and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, wage bills are increasing,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Physician Patient, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Physician Patient 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 Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Physician Patient
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 Physician Patient
Strengths Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Physician Patient in Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Physician Patient
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Physician Patient does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Physician Patient has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust 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)
– Physician Patient 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 Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– Physician Patient has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Physician Patient to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Physician Patient 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 Physician Patient is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Technology & Operations industry
– Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Physician Patient to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Technology & Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Physician Patient to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Physician Patient in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Technology & Operations field
– Physician Patient 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 Physician Patient in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– Physician Patient 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 S. Altan Erdem, L. Jean Harrison-Walker 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Physician Patient is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in Technology & Operations segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Physician Patient digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Physician Patient 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
– Physician Patient has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Physician Patient 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.
Weaknesses Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust are -
Need for greater diversity
– Physician Patient 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust, is just above the industry average. Physician Patient 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Physician Patient has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, S. Altan Erdem, L. Jean Harrison-Walker suggests that, Physician Patient 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Physician Patient 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Physician Patient 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. Physician Patient 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 Physician Patient 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Physician Patient products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Physician Patient needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Physician Patient, firm in the HBR case study Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Physician Patient 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Physician Patient is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Technology & Operations segment. Physician Patient needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Physician Patient to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust | 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 Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Physician Patient to increase its market reach. Physician Patient 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 Physician Patient 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 Physician Patient to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Physician Patient 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Physician Patient 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Physician Patient 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Physician Patient 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, Physician Patient is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Physician Patient can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Developing new processes and practices
– Physician Patient can develop new processes and procedures in Technology & Operations 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 Technology & Operations industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Physician Patient 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. Physician Patient 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 Physician Patient 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.
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 Physician Patient in the consumer business. Now Physician Patient can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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 Physician Patient 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.
Threats Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust are -
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.
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. Physician Patient 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
– Physician Patient 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. Physician Patient can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Physician Patient has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Technology & Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Physician Patient 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Physician Patient 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.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Physician Patient 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.
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 Physician Patient 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, Physician Patient 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 Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust .
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust, Physician Patient 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 .
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. Physician Patient needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Technology & Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Physician Patient 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Physician Patient with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust 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 Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust 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 Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust 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 Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust 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 Role of the Internet in Physician-Patient Relationships: The Issue of Trust 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 Physician Patient needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
