Case Study Description of Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape
Medtronic is adapting its strategy to changes in health care competition and payments. It has decided to develop new relationships with payers, hospitals, and physicians to become more accountable for patient outcomes and total costs. The case describes new forms of partnerships for therapy optimization, management of acute care episodes, and management of chronic care patients.
Authors :: Robert S. Kaplan, Michael E. Porter, Thomas W Feeley, Alee Hernandez
Swot Analysis of "Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape" written by Robert S. Kaplan, Michael E. Porter, Thomas W Feeley, Alee Hernandez includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Medtronic Care facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape casestudy better are - – increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Medtronic Care, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Medtronic Care 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 Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Medtronic Care
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Medtronic Care
Strengths Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Medtronic Care in Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Medtronic Care
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Medtronic Care does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Medtronic Care has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape 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.
Analytics focus
– Medtronic Care 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 Robert S. Kaplan, Michael E. Porter, Thomas W Feeley, Alee Hernandez 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape 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 Strategy & Execution field
– Medtronic Care 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 Medtronic Care in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Medtronic Care has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Medtronic Care to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Medtronic Care 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 Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Medtronic Care is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Innovation driven organization
– Medtronic Care is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Strong track record of project management
– Medtronic Care is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Medtronic Care 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.
Learning organization
- Medtronic Care 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 Medtronic Care is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape are -
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Strategy & Execution 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 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 Medtronic Care supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Medtronic Care vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape 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 Medtronic Care has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape 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 Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Medtronic Care is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Medtronic Care 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape 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 Medtronic Care 's lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape, is just above the industry average. Medtronic Care 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Medtronic Care is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape, in the dynamic environment Medtronic Care has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Medtronic Care has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Medtronic Care products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Medtronic Care needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape, it seems that the employees of Medtronic Care 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 Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape | 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 Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape are -
Manufacturing automation
– Medtronic Care can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Strategy & Execution 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Medtronic Care can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Medtronic Care operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
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 Medtronic Care in the consumer business. Now Medtronic Care can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Medtronic Care 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Medtronic Care has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Medtronic Care to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape case study. Medtronic Care can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Medtronic Care 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 Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Medtronic Care to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Medtronic Care can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Medtronic Care 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Medtronic Care to increase its market reach. Medtronic Care 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.
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. Medtronic Care can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Medtronic Care 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 Strategy & Execution segment.
Loyalty marketing
– Medtronic Care 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Medtronic Care 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.
Threats Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Medtronic Care demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Medtronic Care business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Medtronic Care.
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 Medtronic Care in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Medtronic Care is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Medtronic Care 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. Medtronic Care can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
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. Medtronic Care 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape, Medtronic Care may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Strategy & Execution .
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Medtronic Care 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 Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape .
Increasing wage structure of Medtronic Care
– 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 Medtronic Care.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Medtronic Care in the Strategy & Execution industry. The Strategy & Execution 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Strategy & Execution field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Medtronic Care can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Medtronic Care with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape 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 Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape 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 Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape 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 Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape 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 Medtronic: Navigating a Shifting Healthcare Landscape 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 Medtronic Care needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.