Case Study Description of Karolinska Sjukhuset (B)
The case describes the major transformation that took place in one of the largest university hospitals in Sweden. Changes involved refocusing on the patient as final customer, improving quality and reducing costs. They were achieved through a total quality improvement scheme combined with process re-engineering. Organisational changes helped implement these changes.
Swot Analysis of "Karolinska Sjukhuset (B)" written by Tabet Joe, James Teboul includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Karolinska Sjukhuset facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Product development and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Karolinska Sjukhuset (B)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Karolinska Sjukhuset, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Karolinska Sjukhuset 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 Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Karolinska Sjukhuset
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 Karolinska Sjukhuset
Strengths Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Karolinska Sjukhuset in Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– Karolinska Sjukhuset is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Karolinska Sjukhuset 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 Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) - 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
- Karolinska Sjukhuset 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 Karolinska Sjukhuset is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Karolinska Sjukhuset
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Karolinska Sjukhuset does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Karolinska Sjukhuset 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 Tabet Joe, James Teboul 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Karolinska Sjukhuset 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 Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Karolinska Sjukhuset is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Karolinska Sjukhuset to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Karolinska Sjukhuset to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Karolinska Sjukhuset 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Karolinska Sjukhuset is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Training and development
– Karolinska Sjukhuset has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Karolinska Sjukhuset has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Karolinska Sjukhuset 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.
Weaknesses Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Karolinska Sjukhuset is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Karolinska Sjukhuset needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Karolinska Sjukhuset to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Karolinska Sjukhuset 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Tabet Joe, James Teboul suggests that, Karolinska Sjukhuset 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) 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 Karolinska Sjukhuset 's lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Karolinska Sjukhuset 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. Karolinska Sjukhuset 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Karolinska Sjukhuset, firm in the HBR case study Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Karolinska Sjukhuset 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Karolinska Sjukhuset 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 - Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Karolinska Sjukhuset (B), it seems that the employees of Karolinska Sjukhuset 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.
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 Karolinska Sjukhuset supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Karolinska Sjukhuset (B), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Karolinska Sjukhuset vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Karolinska Sjukhuset (B), in the dynamic environment Karolinska Sjukhuset has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Karolinska Sjukhuset has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Opportunities Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) | 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 Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Karolinska Sjukhuset can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Karolinska Sjukhuset operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
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. Karolinska Sjukhuset can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Karolinska Sjukhuset 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 Karolinska Sjukhuset to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Karolinska Sjukhuset 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Karolinska Sjukhuset 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 Karolinska Sjukhuset can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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 Karolinska Sjukhuset 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 Karolinska Sjukhuset to increase its market reach. Karolinska Sjukhuset 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Karolinska Sjukhuset has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Karolinska Sjukhuset to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) case study. Karolinska Sjukhuset can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Karolinska Sjukhuset 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Karolinska Sjukhuset 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 Leadership & Managing People segment.
Developing new processes and practices
– Karolinska Sjukhuset 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Karolinska Sjukhuset 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 Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) are -
Regulatory challenges
– Karolinska Sjukhuset 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.
Increasing wage structure of Karolinska Sjukhuset
– 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 Karolinska Sjukhuset.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Karolinska Sjukhuset has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Karolinska Sjukhuset 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.
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. Karolinska Sjukhuset needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Karolinska Sjukhuset can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Karolinska Sjukhuset with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Karolinska Sjukhuset 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 Karolinska Sjukhuset business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Karolinska Sjukhuset 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. Karolinska Sjukhuset can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Karolinska Sjukhuset (B), Karolinska Sjukhuset 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 .
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.
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. Karolinska Sjukhuset 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
– Karolinska Sjukhuset 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) 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 Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) 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 Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) 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 Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) 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 Karolinska Sjukhuset (B) 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 Karolinska Sjukhuset needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.