BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team
BrightStar Care was a rapidly growing franchise of home health care agencies. Founded by husband and wife team JD and Shelly Sun as a single agency near Chicago in 2002, by 2016 nearly 300 BrightStar franchises were open across the United States, generating over $300 million in revenue. BrightStar was now a very different company from the one Shelly and JD had started up during their first year of marriage. Shelly Sun, CEO, had decided to franchise the business in 2004, believing that the franchise model presented a relatively low-risk and high-return approach to growing BrightStar. As franchises began to sell, Sun quickly set about building scalable operations and infrastructure, including a centralized technology function and custom software for franchisees. As more and more locations opened around the United States, she focused on growing BrightStar's national marketing profile and putting measures in place to distinguish BrightStar's services as higher-quality than that of its competitors. A shifting regulatory landscape and labor shortages posed challenge, but BrightStar continued to grow swiftly. As the company evolved and Sun attempted to spend more time away from headquarters, surveying the field and building relationships, she knew she needed a strong senior management team. Some members of her senior team had been with BrightStar for years, expanding their responsibilities as the company expanded, while others she recruited from outside. In the early 2010s, Sun was close to filling all BrightStar's crucial executive roles, but had to consider whether some longtime leaders were the right fit for the company's current needs. As she thought through the composition of her senior team, she also revamped her board of advisors and pursued international franchising opportunities and a debt recapitalization. By early 2016, Shelly was looking to the company's next phase of growth while handing management of her executive team to BrightStar's President and COO.
Authors :: Boris Groysberg, Colleen Ammerman, John D. Vaughan
Swot Analysis of "BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team" written by Boris Groysberg, Colleen Ammerman, John D. Vaughan includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Brightstar Brightstar's facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Branding, Change management, Entrepreneurial management, Gender, Growth strategy, Leadership development, Leading teams, Organizational structure, Succession planning, Talent management and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team casestudy better are - – technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Brightstar Brightstar's, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Brightstar Brightstar's 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 BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Brightstar Brightstar's
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field.
4. Making a Innovation & Entrepreneurship topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Brightstar Brightstar's
Strengths BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Brightstar Brightstar's in BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Brightstar Brightstar's in the sector have low bargaining power. BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Brightstar Brightstar's to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Brightstar Brightstar's has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Brightstar Brightstar's has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Brightstar Brightstar's 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 BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Brightstar Brightstar's 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 Brightstar Brightstar's is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Brightstar Brightstar's has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team 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
– Brightstar Brightstar's 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 Boris Groysberg, Colleen Ammerman, John D. Vaughan 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Brightstar Brightstar's in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Brightstar Brightstar's is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team 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.
Organizational Resilience of Brightstar Brightstar's
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Brightstar Brightstar's does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Brightstar Brightstar's is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Brightstar Brightstar's digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Brightstar Brightstar's 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.
Weaknesses BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team are -
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Boris Groysberg, Colleen Ammerman, John D. Vaughan suggests that, Brightstar Brightstar's 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Brightstar Brightstar's 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Brightstar Brightstar's has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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 Brightstar Brightstar's supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Brightstar Brightstar's vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Brightstar Brightstar's 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. Brightstar Brightstar's 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Brightstar Brightstar's 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team, it seems that the employees of Brightstar Brightstar's 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Brightstar Brightstar's is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Brightstar Brightstar's needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Brightstar Brightstar's to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team, in the dynamic environment Brightstar Brightstar's has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Brightstar Brightstar's has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team 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 BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Brightstar Brightstar's is planning to shift buying processes online.
Opportunities BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team | 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 BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Brightstar Brightstar's 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Brightstar Brightstar's 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Brightstar Brightstar's 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Brightstar Brightstar's can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Brightstar Brightstar's is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Brightstar Brightstar's 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 BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Brightstar Brightstar's to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Brightstar Brightstar's can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Brightstar Brightstar's operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Brightstar Brightstar's 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, BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Brightstar Brightstar's has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Brightstar Brightstar's to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team case study. Brightstar Brightstar's can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Brightstar Brightstar's in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Brightstar Brightstar's to increase its market reach. Brightstar Brightstar's 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Brightstar Brightstar's can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Brightstar Brightstar's 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.
Threats BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Brightstar Brightstar's 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.
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. Brightstar Brightstar's 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.
Increasing wage structure of Brightstar Brightstar's
– 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 Brightstar Brightstar's.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Brightstar Brightstar's 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.
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 Brightstar Brightstar's in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Brightstar Brightstar's is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Brightstar Brightstar's in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Environmental challenges
– Brightstar Brightstar's 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. Brightstar Brightstar's can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Brightstar Brightstar's has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Brightstar Brightstar's needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
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 Brightstar Brightstar's.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Brightstar Brightstar's needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Brightstar Brightstar's 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team 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 BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team 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 BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team 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 BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team 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 BrightStar Care: The Evolution of a Leadership Team 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 Brightstar Brightstar's needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
