U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Global Business
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives
The national economic implications of rising healthcare costs were poorly understood, even as the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom instituted reforms in early 2010. Presenting opportunities for cross-national policy learning, this case describes the political economy of healthcare reform. In late March 2010, a major healthcare reform act was signed into law in the United States, expanding coverage and regulating insurers. However, it was not clear that expanding coverage would resolve a longstanding dilemma of rising costs for insurance and care. As the Department of Health and Human Services implemented the new law, it drew on lessons from Germany, which had implemented changes to regulated but competitive insurance and provider markets, and the United Kingdom, which had introduced market-style initiatives while keeping insurance and delivery under the National Health Service.
Swot Analysis of "U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives" written by Arthur A. Daemmrich, Elia Cameron includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Healthcare Reform facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Health and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Healthcare Reform, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Healthcare Reform 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 U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Healthcare Reform
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Global Business field.
4. Making a Global Business topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Healthcare Reform
Strengths U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Healthcare Reform in U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– Healthcare Reform is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in Global Business segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Healthcare Reform digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Healthcare Reform has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Healthcare Reform 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 U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives - 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
– Healthcare Reform is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives 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 Healthcare Reform in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Healthcare Reform 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Healthcare Reform 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Healthcare Reform is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Healthcare Reform is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Ability to lead change in Global Business field
– Healthcare Reform 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 Healthcare Reform in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Healthcare Reform
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Healthcare Reform does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Healthcare Reform has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Healthcare Reform to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Healthcare Reform 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives 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 U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Healthcare Reform is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Global Business 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Healthcare Reform 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Healthcare Reform has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives 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 Healthcare Reform has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives, in the dynamic environment Healthcare Reform has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Healthcare Reform has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Healthcare Reform is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives HBR case study mentions - Healthcare Reform takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Healthcare Reform is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Global Business segment. Healthcare Reform needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Healthcare Reform to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives, it seems that the employees of Healthcare Reform 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 U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives | 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 U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Healthcare Reform 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
– Healthcare Reform 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 Healthcare Reform in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Global Business segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Healthcare Reform has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Healthcare Reform to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives case study. Healthcare Reform can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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 Healthcare Reform 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Healthcare Reform to increase its market reach. Healthcare Reform 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Healthcare Reform 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 U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Healthcare Reform to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Healthcare Reform 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 Healthcare Reform to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Healthcare Reform 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 Global Business industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Healthcare Reform 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. Healthcare Reform 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.
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. Healthcare Reform can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Healthcare Reform 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 Global Business segment.
Developing new processes and practices
– Healthcare Reform can develop new processes and procedures in Global Business industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Threats U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives, Healthcare Reform may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Global Business .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Healthcare Reform has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Healthcare Reform needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Global Business 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 Healthcare Reform in the Global Business industry. The Global Business 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Healthcare Reform with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Healthcare Reform 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.
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 Healthcare Reform business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Healthcare Reform 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Healthcare Reform 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 U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives .
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Global Business field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Healthcare Reform can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Healthcare Reform 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 Healthcare Reform
– 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 Healthcare Reform.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives 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 U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives 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 U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives 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 U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives 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 U.S. Healthcare Reform: International Perspectives 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 Healthcare Reform needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
