In November 2010, the senior director of Inpatient Services at Guelph General Hospital, which was situated in a small city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, was facing questions about the implementation of the Process Improvement Program, part of a province-wide pilot project. Beginning in October 2009, the program had been tested at the hospital to deal with a deteriorating organizational culture and poor performance reviews. Guelph General Hospital was plagued with inefficiencies: patients leaving untreated, low staff morale, a defensive (blame) culture, and a lack of interdepartmental collaboration. The new program was based on the "lean" methodology developed by Japanese automotive manufacturers, but its use in the hospital had raised questions about whether it was suitable in a healthcare setting. Some employees did not support it and were threatening to leave. Should the hospital continue to implement the lean strategy? How should it move forward?
Authors :: Michael Rouse, Justin Cottrell, Abhinay Sathya, Austin Allison
Swot Analysis of "Guelph General Hospital" written by Michael Rouse, Justin Cottrell, Abhinay Sathya, Austin Allison includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Hospital Guelph facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Guelph General Hospital case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Change management, Project management, Strategy and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Guelph General Hospital casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Guelph General Hospital
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Guelph General Hospital case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Hospital Guelph, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Hospital Guelph 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 Guelph General Hospital can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Guelph General Hospital case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Hospital Guelph
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 Hospital Guelph
Strengths Guelph General Hospital | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Hospital Guelph in Guelph General Hospital Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– Hospital Guelph 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 Michael Rouse, Justin Cottrell, Abhinay Sathya, Austin Allison 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.
Learning organization
- Hospital Guelph 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 Hospital Guelph is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Guelph General Hospital Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Hospital Guelph 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 Guelph General Hospital - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Hospital Guelph
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Hospital Guelph does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Hospital Guelph has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Hospital Guelph to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Hospital Guelph is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Guelph General Hospital are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Hospital Guelph 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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Hospital Guelph 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 Hospital Guelph in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Guelph General Hospital 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Hospital Guelph 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Hospital Guelph has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Hospital Guelph 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 Hospital Guelph in the sector have low bargaining power. Guelph General Hospital has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Hospital Guelph to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses Guelph General Hospital | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Guelph General Hospital are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Guelph General Hospital HBR case study mentions - Hospital Guelph 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Guelph General Hospital 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 Hospital Guelph 's lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Guelph General Hospital, in the dynamic environment Hospital Guelph has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Hospital Guelph has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Hospital Guelph 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Hospital Guelph has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Hospital Guelph 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Hospital Guelph 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 - Guelph General Hospital 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 Hospital Guelph supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Guelph General Hospital, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Hospital Guelph vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Hospital Guelph 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Guelph General Hospital 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 Guelph General Hospital can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Hospital Guelph is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Hospital Guelph is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Guelph General Hospital can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Opportunities Guelph General Hospital | 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 Guelph General Hospital are -
Manufacturing automation
– Hospital Guelph can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Hospital Guelph can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Guelph General Hospital 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Hospital Guelph can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Hospital Guelph 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Hospital Guelph 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 Hospital Guelph 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Hospital Guelph 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Hospital Guelph 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 Hospital Guelph to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Hospital Guelph 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, Guelph General Hospital, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Hospital Guelph in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Leadership & Managing People segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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 Hospital Guelph in the consumer business. Now Hospital Guelph can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Hospital Guelph has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Hospital Guelph to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Guelph General Hospital case study. Hospital Guelph can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Hospital Guelph 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 Guelph General Hospital - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Hospital Guelph to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Guelph General Hospital External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Guelph General Hospital are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Hospital Guelph has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Hospital Guelph 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.
Increasing wage structure of Hospital Guelph
– 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 Hospital Guelph.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Hospital Guelph with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Hospital Guelph is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Hospital Guelph 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.
Environmental challenges
– Hospital Guelph 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. Hospital Guelph can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Hospital Guelph 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.
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. Hospital Guelph can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Hospital Guelph in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Guelph General Hospital, Hospital Guelph 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 .
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. Hospital Guelph needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Hospital Guelph business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Guelph General Hospital 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 Guelph General Hospital 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 Guelph General Hospital 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 Guelph General Hospital 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 Guelph General Hospital 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 Hospital Guelph needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
