Case Study Description of L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge
This case deals with the challenges faced at L'Oseraie, a nursing home located in the north-east of France. The director of L'Oseraie was faced with a number of issues and questions: - How to improve the employee motivation and engagement further as the absenteeism episode seemed to have added fuel to the fire? - How to find the time to implement a real strategy at the nursing home, as tackling too many day-to-day issues was time-consuming? - How to create a real service-oriented approach among the employees? - In order to address the issue of lack of healthcare staff in France, would it be possible to source talent abroad (from new EU members in Eastern Europe, or from the French-speaking countries of North Africa, for instance)? - What suggestions could be put forward before the new general manager for implementation in order to overcome the various challenges facing the organization and to completely turn around its functioning and performance?
Swot Analysis of "L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge" written by Justin Paul, Marc Chaix, Shruti Gupta includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that L'oseraie Nursing facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Human resource management, Leadership, Organizational structure, Reorganization, Strategy and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge casestudy better are - – technology disruption, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices,
there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the L'oseraie Nursing, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which L'oseraie Nursing 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 L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of L'oseraie Nursing
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 L'oseraie Nursing
Strengths L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of L'oseraie Nursing in L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge Harvard Business Review case study are -
Diverse revenue streams
– L'oseraie Nursing is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– L'oseraie Nursing has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. L'oseraie Nursing 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of L'oseraie Nursing in the sector have low bargaining power. L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps L'oseraie Nursing to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge 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.
Training and development
– L'oseraie Nursing has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge 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.
High brand equity
– L'oseraie Nursing has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled L'oseraie Nursing to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of L'oseraie Nursing
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that L'oseraie Nursing does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that L'oseraie Nursing 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.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For L'oseraie Nursing digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. L'oseraie Nursing 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.
Analytics focus
– L'oseraie Nursing 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 Justin Paul, Marc Chaix, Shruti Gupta 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– L'oseraie Nursing 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 L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the L'oseraie Nursing 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.
Weaknesses L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, L'oseraie Nursing 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of L'oseraie Nursing, firm in the HBR case study L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge, it seems that the employees of L'oseraie Nursing 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge HBR case study mentions - L'oseraie Nursing 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 L'oseraie Nursing is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. L'oseraie Nursing needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help L'oseraie Nursing to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge 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 L'oseraie Nursing has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, L'oseraie Nursing 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
L'oseraie Nursing 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, L'oseraie Nursing 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. L'oseraie Nursing 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 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 L'oseraie Nursing supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left L'oseraie Nursing vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge, 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 L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge | 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 L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge are -
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 L'oseraie Nursing 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.
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. L'oseraie Nursing can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. L'oseraie Nursing can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, L'oseraie Nursing can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that L'oseraie Nursing operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Loyalty marketing
– L'oseraie Nursing 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects L'oseraie Nursing can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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 L'oseraie Nursing in the consumer business. Now L'oseraie Nursing can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, L'oseraie Nursing 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, L'oseraie Nursing 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, L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Developing new processes and practices
– L'oseraie Nursing can develop new processes and procedures in Leadership & Managing People industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
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. L'oseraie Nursing 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. L'oseraie Nursing 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of L'oseraie Nursing has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help L'oseraie Nursing to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge case study. L'oseraie Nursing can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– L'oseraie Nursing 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 L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents L'oseraie Nursing with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing wage structure of L'oseraie Nursing
– 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 L'oseraie Nursing.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– L'oseraie Nursing 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, L'oseraie Nursing 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 L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge .
Environmental challenges
– L'oseraie Nursing 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. L'oseraie Nursing can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on L'oseraie Nursing 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for L'oseraie Nursing 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.
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 L'oseraie Nursing business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. L'oseraie Nursing needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– L'oseraie Nursing has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, L'oseraie Nursing 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge, L'oseraie Nursing 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 .
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 L'oseraie Nursing.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge 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 L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge 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 L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge 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 L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge 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 L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge 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 L'oseraie Nursing needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.