Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term
Two life-long friends, one a doctor and one a business professional, joined forces to set up Eye-Q Super Specialty Hospitals in 2007. Driven by their shared goal of bringing superior quality eye care to places where such services were desperately needed, the partners chose to operate in the small towns and cities across India. Both men believed in a vision that combined a socially driven business model with a commercially viable enterprise, and they had experienced great success with this model during their first seven years of operation. In January 2014, as they charted out Eye-Q Super Speciality Hospitals' plans for growth, the partners decided to expand the organization's reach from 30 to 125 hospitals over the upcoming five years. Was this growth expectation realistic? What strategy would best suit this objective? S. Ramakrishna Velamuri is affiliated with China Europe International Business School. Geetika Shah is affiliated with Indian School of Business.
Swot Analysis of "Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term" written by S. Ramakrishna Velamuri, Geetika Shah includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Eye Hospitals facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Eye Hospitals, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Eye Hospitals 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 Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Eye Hospitals
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Eye Hospitals
Strengths Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Eye Hospitals in Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term Harvard Business Review case study are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Eye Hospitals 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 Eye Hospitals in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– Eye Hospitals 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. Ramakrishna Velamuri, Geetika Shah 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.
Training and development
– Eye Hospitals has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term 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.
Organizational Resilience of Eye Hospitals
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Eye Hospitals does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Eye Hospitals 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 Eye Hospitals is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Eye Hospitals is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Eye Hospitals in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Eye Hospitals is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
High brand equity
– Eye Hospitals has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Eye Hospitals to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Eye Hospitals to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Eye Hospitals to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Eye Hospitals 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 Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Eye Hospitals 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 Eye Hospitals is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Eye Hospitals needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Eye Hospitals to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term 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 Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Eye Hospitals is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Eye Hospitals 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Eye Hospitals 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Eye Hospitals needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, S. Ramakrishna Velamuri, Geetika Shah suggests that, Eye Hospitals 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term, is just above the industry average. Eye Hospitals 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Eye Hospitals 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Leadership & Managing People 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Eye Hospitals, firm in the HBR case study Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term | 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 Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Eye Hospitals 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Eye Hospitals can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Eye Hospitals 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 Eye Hospitals to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Eye Hospitals 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Leadership & Managing People industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Eye Hospitals 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. Eye Hospitals 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Eye Hospitals can develop new processes and procedures in Leadership & Managing People 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Eye Hospitals 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Eye Hospitals in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Leadership & Managing People segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– Eye Hospitals can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term 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.
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 Eye Hospitals in the consumer business. Now Eye Hospitals can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Eye Hospitals 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 Leadership & Managing People segment.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Eye Hospitals 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.
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. Eye Hospitals can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term are -
Environmental challenges
– Eye Hospitals 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. Eye Hospitals can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Eye Hospitals in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The Leadership & Managing People 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Eye Hospitals is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Eye Hospitals can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Eye Hospitals business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Eye Hospitals 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 Leadership & Managing People industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Eye Hospitals has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Eye Hospitals needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Leadership & Managing People 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.
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 Eye Hospitals.
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 Eye Hospitals in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term, Eye Hospitals may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Leadership & Managing People .
Increasing wage structure of Eye Hospitals
– 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 Eye Hospitals.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Eye Hospitals 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term 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 Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term 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 Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term 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 Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term 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 Eye-Q: Vision for the Long Term 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 Eye Hospitals needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.