Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Technology & Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care
Saint Elizabeth, a leading Canadian health-care enterprise, had been managing innovation through what it called the Innovation Tripod. This had three components-Ideas (which involved generating innovative ideas from among employees), Solutions (involving outside ventures in innovation), and Impact (consisting of ways in which results were measured). The chief executive officer (CEO) was facing a dilemma with each element of the tripod. How could staff engagement be improved? What was a better way of managing external partners? How could the prevailing metrics of innovation be fine-tuned? What was the way forward for the CEO?
Authors :: David Barrett, Ramasastry Chandrasekhar
Swot Analysis of "Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care" written by David Barrett, Ramasastry Chandrasekhar includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Tripod Innovation facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Tripod Innovation, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Tripod Innovation 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 Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Tripod Innovation
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 Tripod Innovation
Strengths Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Tripod Innovation in Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care Harvard Business Review case study are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care 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.
High brand equity
– Tripod Innovation has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Tripod Innovation to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Tripod Innovation is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care 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.
Analytics focus
– Tripod Innovation 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 David Barrett, Ramasastry Chandrasekhar 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Tripod Innovation 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 Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management
– Tripod Innovation is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Tripod Innovation in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Tripod Innovation 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 Tripod Innovation is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Tripod Innovation 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Tripod Innovation is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Tripod Innovation has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Tripod Innovation 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.
Organizational Resilience of Tripod Innovation
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Tripod Innovation does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Tripod Innovation 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Tripod Innovation 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Tripod Innovation is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Technology & Operations segment. Tripod Innovation needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Tripod Innovation to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care, is just above the industry average. Tripod Innovation 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care 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 Tripod Innovation has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Tripod Innovation is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care 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 Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Tripod Innovation is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care, 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Tripod Innovation 's lucrative customers.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Tripod Innovation supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Tripod Innovation vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care, it seems that the employees of Tripod Innovation don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Opportunities Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care | 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 Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Tripod Innovation 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Tripod Innovation 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, Tripod Innovation is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Tripod Innovation 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Tripod Innovation 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.
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 Tripod Innovation 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Tripod Innovation can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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 Tripod Innovation in the consumer business. Now Tripod Innovation can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Tripod Innovation has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Tripod Innovation to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care case study. Tripod Innovation can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Tripod Innovation can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
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. Tripod Innovation can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Tripod Innovation 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 Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Tripod Innovation to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Tripod Innovation to increase its market reach. Tripod Innovation 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.
Threats Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care are -
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.
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. Tripod Innovation 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Tripod Innovation with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Tripod Innovation 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
– Tripod Innovation 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. Tripod Innovation can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
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 Tripod Innovation business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Tripod Innovation
– 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 Tripod Innovation.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Tripod Innovation 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 Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care .
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.
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 Tripod Innovation.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Tripod Innovation is facing in Technology & Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Tripod Innovation 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Tripod Innovation 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care 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 Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care 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 Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care 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 Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care 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 Saint Elizabeth: Innovation in Health Care 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 Tripod Innovation needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.