Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
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Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care
With ultra-short sightlines to its patient-customers, healthcare should pursue lean in its own way rather than follow the often wayward lean practices of manufacturing, a sector in which few people ever see real customers. Because of the distance in manufacturing from end customers, this sector's lean practices usually focus inward on operational efficiency through waste elimination. The nature of healthcare-with customers up close and immediate-calls for elevating its lean efforts toward customer-focused lean effectiveness: flexibly quick response along the multiple flow paths leading to and involving patients. This article illustrates that approach to lean by drawing from a case study in which widely scattered heart attack patients were transported to a central treatment hospital in a system-wide, highly coordinated program of quick response. This article shows that the keys to success-including high rates of saving lives and lean healthcare in general-boil down to just five lean methodologies, each focused on quick response. Lean healthcare, when practiced in this way, becomes deserving of status as a fixture in strategic management of the enterprise.
Swot Analysis of "Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care" written by Richard J. Schonberger includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Lean Healthcare facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Lean Healthcare, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Lean Healthcare 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 Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Lean Healthcare
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 Lean Healthcare
Strengths Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Lean Healthcare in Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care Harvard Business Review case study are -
Innovation driven organization
– Lean Healthcare is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Lean Healthcare 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 Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Lean Healthcare has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Lean Healthcare to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Lean Healthcare is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Strong track record of project management
– Lean Healthcare is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Lean Healthcare
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Lean Healthcare does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Lean Healthcare in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Lean Healthcare 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 Lean Healthcare is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Lean Healthcare 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 Lean Healthcare in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– Lean Healthcare 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 Richard J. Schonberger 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Lean Healthcare in the sector have low bargaining power. Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Lean Healthcare to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Lean Healthcare has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care 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.
Weaknesses Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused 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 Lean Healthcare 's lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Richard J. Schonberger suggests that, Lean Healthcare 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 Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care, is just above the industry average. Lean Healthcare 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 Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused 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 Lean Healthcare has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Lean Healthcare 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Lean Healthcare 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Lean Healthcare, firm in the HBR case study Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Lean Healthcare 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, Lean Healthcare 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. Lean Healthcare 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Lean Healthcare is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Lean Healthcare needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Lean Healthcare to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care, 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.
Opportunities Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused 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 Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Lean Healthcare to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Leadership & Managing People industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Lean Healthcare 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. Lean Healthcare 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Lean Healthcare 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, Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Lean Healthcare 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.
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 Lean Healthcare in the consumer business. Now Lean Healthcare can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Lean Healthcare to increase its market reach. Lean Healthcare 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Lean Healthcare 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.
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. Lean Healthcare can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Lean Healthcare is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Leadership & Managing People industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Lean Healthcare can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Lean Healthcare can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Lean Healthcare 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Lean Healthcare 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.
Threats Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Lean Healthcare with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Lean Healthcare demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Environmental challenges
– Lean Healthcare 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. Lean Healthcare can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care, Lean Healthcare 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 .
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Lean Healthcare 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.
Increasing wage structure of Lean Healthcare
– 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 Lean Healthcare.
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. Lean Healthcare 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.
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 Lean Healthcare in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Lean Healthcare has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Lean Healthcare 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Lean Healthcare 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Lean Healthcare 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 Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused Care .
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 Lean Healthcare.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused 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 Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused 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 Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused 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 Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused 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 Reconstituting Lean In Healthcare: From Waste Elimination Toward 'Queue-less' Patient-Focused 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 Lean Healthcare needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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