Case Study Description of Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas
After suffering severe complications from a relatively minor surgery at a California children's hospital in early December 2013, a young teenage girl was declared brain dead. However, to her family, the girl seemed responsive and they refused to accept the hospital's statement that their daughter was deceased. The hospital arranged visits with social workers and other staff in an attempt to help the family understand that their daughter was dead and, after three days, informed the family of its plan to move the teen's body to the morgue. The case quickly became a nationwide media event. The family acquired a noted lawyer to ensure the teen received the care the family thought was needed, while the hospital hired a public relations firm to become the hospital's voice in the issue, a move that might have exacerbated the problem. With such a complex and tragic crisis that rapidly unfolded, should the hospital have a policy in the event that family members disagree with an official medical diagnosis? How could the hospital have managed the aftermath of the teen's death and prevented a media embarrassment? Arthur Daemmrich is affiliated with KU Medical Center.
Swot Analysis of "Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas" written by Arthur A. Daemmrich, Lauren Davis includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Hospital Family facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Organizational culture, Public relations and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Hospital Family, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Hospital Family 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 Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Hospital Family
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 Family
Strengths Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Hospital Family in Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas Harvard Business Review case study are -
Learning organization
- Hospital Family 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 Family is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Hospital Family 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 Arthur A. Daemmrich, Lauren Davis 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Hospital Family is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Hospital Family has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Hospital Family 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Hospital Family is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Hospital Family 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 Hospital Family digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Hospital Family 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Hospital Family to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Hospital Family to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Hospital Family 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 Family 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 Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Hospital Family 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 Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Hospital Family has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas 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.
Weaknesses Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas 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 Family 's lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Hospital Family 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 - Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Hospital Family 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas HBR case study mentions - Hospital Family 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Hospital Family products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Hospital Family needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas, 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Arthur A. Daemmrich, Lauren Davis suggests that, Hospital Family 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hospital Family, firm in the HBR case study Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas 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 Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas, it seems that the employees of Hospital Family 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 star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas 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 Hospital Family has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Hospital Family is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Hospital Family needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Hospital Family to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas | 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 Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas are -
Buying journey improvements
– Hospital Family can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas 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.
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. Hospital Family can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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. Hospital Family can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Hospital Family 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Hospital Family 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Hospital Family has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Hospital Family to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas case study. Hospital Family can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Hospital Family 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Hospital Family can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Hospital Family can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Hospital Family operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Hospital Family 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 Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Hospital Family to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Hospital Family 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. Hospital Family 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Hospital Family 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 Family 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 Family to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas are -
Increasing wage structure of Hospital Family
– 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 Family.
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 Family 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. Hospital Family 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, Hospital Family 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 Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Hospital Family 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Hospital Family 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas, Hospital Family 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Hospital Family 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Hospital Family is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Hospital Family 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.
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.
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 Family business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas 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 Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas 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 Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas 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 Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas 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 Children's Hospital Oakland: End-of-Life Dilemmas 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 Family needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
