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 - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs, geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization, 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 -
Ability to recruit top talent
– L'oseraie Nursing is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge 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
– L'oseraie Nursing is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
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.
Learning organization
- L'oseraie Nursing 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 L'oseraie Nursing is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled L'oseraie Nursing to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped L'oseraie Nursing to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– L'oseraie Nursing has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– L'oseraie Nursing 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 L'oseraie Nursing in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
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 -
Lack of clear differentiation of L'oseraie Nursing products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, L'oseraie Nursing 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 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge 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 L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as L'oseraie Nursing is planning to shift buying processes online.
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.
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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Justin Paul, Marc Chaix, Shruti Gupta suggests that, L'oseraie Nursing 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.
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.
Need for greater diversity
– L'oseraie Nursing has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge 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 L'oseraie Nursing 's lucrative customers.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at L'oseraie Nursing has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
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.
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 -
Buying journey improvements
– L'oseraie Nursing can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
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.
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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, L'oseraie Nursing is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for L'oseraie Nursing 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 L'oseraie Nursing to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help L'oseraie Nursing to increase its market reach. L'oseraie Nursing 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. L'oseraie Nursing can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– L'oseraie Nursing 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 L'Oseraie - Turnaround Challenge - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help L'oseraie Nursing to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for L'oseraie Nursing 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.
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.
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.
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 -
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.
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.
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.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– L'oseraie Nursing needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Leadership & Managing People industry regulations.
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. L'oseraie Nursing 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– L'oseraie Nursing 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.
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 .
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. L'oseraie Nursing can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 .
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.
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.
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.