Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Technology & Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future
Founded in 1892, Nanjing Gulou Hospital, is one of the earliest western medical hospitals in China. It was founded by Dr. William Edward Macklin, M.D., Disciples (Canada) Mission to China, with the assistance of Prof. Frank Eugene Meigs, the Curch of Christ (USA), and the local Nanjing community. At its early stage of establishment, the hospital took "Love, Kindness and Public Service" as its philosophy and "No prejudice to patients as the first priority", proposed by Macklin, as an aspiration. However, due to the uneven distribution of medical resources, neglect of humanities in China's medical education, among other reasons, Chinese public hospitals showed a lack of human concern over a long period of time. In 2004, the president of Gulou Hospital, Ding Yitao, took humanism as a breakthrough point, and first proposed the missing of honoring the hospital's heritage of humanism and building the best humanistic hospital. At a high level, the strategic transformation is implemented along three dimensions: building a memorial hall to honor the heritage of humanistic spirit of Gulou Hospital, launching an expansion project for the hospital that improves availability and quality of health care, as well as transforming hospital management, operation and performance evaluation that stimulate the cultural consciousness of all employees and create a humanistic hospital. Since Gulou Hospital embarked on the journal to build the best humanistic hospital in China, it has generated positive results in terms of patient attraction and satisfaction level. Gulou Hospital has become an exemplar of modern, humanistic hospital in China and received many awards. However, going forward, the hospital faces mounting challenges. How to further deepening the reform and engage all employees? Will Gulou Hospital's core competency sustain into the future and continues to enable the hospital to gain a strong foothold in the increasingly crowded healthcare market?
Swot Analysis of "Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future" written by Ning Jia, Weiqi Liu, Shanshan Cao includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Gulou Hospital facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, IT and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Gulou Hospital, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Gulou Hospital 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 Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Gulou Hospital
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 Gulou Hospital
Strengths Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Gulou Hospital in Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– Gulou Hospital 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 Ning Jia, Weiqi Liu, Shanshan Cao 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Gulou Hospital is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future 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
- Gulou Hospital 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 Gulou Hospital is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Gulou Hospital has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Gulou Hospital to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Gulou Hospital in the sector have low bargaining power. Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Gulou Hospital to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Gulou Hospital 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 Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Gulou Hospital
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Gulou Hospital does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Gulou Hospital 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 Technology & Operations segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Gulou Hospital digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Gulou Hospital 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Gulou Hospital 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 Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Gulou Hospital has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Gulou Hospital 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 Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future, is just above the industry average. Gulou Hospital 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Gulou Hospital 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Gulou Hospital 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Gulou Hospital 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Gulou Hospital 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 - Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Gulou Hospital 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. Gulou Hospital 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Gulou Hospital 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future 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 Gulou Hospital has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Gulou Hospital products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Gulou Hospital needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Gulou Hospital 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Ning Jia, Weiqi Liu, Shanshan Cao suggests that, Gulou Hospital 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.
Opportunities Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future | 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 Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Gulou Hospital 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Gulou Hospital 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, Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Gulou Hospital 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. Gulou Hospital 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Gulou Hospital 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
– Gulou Hospital 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 Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Gulou Hospital to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Gulou Hospital 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Gulou Hospital can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Gulou Hospital operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Technology & Operations sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Gulou Hospital is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Gulou Hospital to increase its market reach. Gulou Hospital 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Gulou Hospital has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Gulou Hospital to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future case study. Gulou Hospital can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Gulou Hospital 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Gulou Hospital 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 Gulou Hospital to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Gulou Hospital 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.
Threats Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Gulou Hospital is facing in Technology & Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Gulou Hospital with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Gulou Hospital has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Technology & Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Gulou Hospital 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.
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. Gulou Hospital can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Gulou Hospital 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.
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. Gulou Hospital 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 wage structure of Gulou Hospital
– 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 Gulou Hospital.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Gulou Hospital 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Gulou Hospital in the Technology & Operations industry. The Technology & Operations industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Gulou Hospital.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Gulou Hospital 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 Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future .
Environmental challenges
– Gulou Hospital 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. Gulou Hospital can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future 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 Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future 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 Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future 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 Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future 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 Nanjing Gulou Hospital: Honoring the Heritage and Building the Future 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 Gulou Hospital needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
