Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals
The case describes the use of linen at the Apollo hospitals. Apollo Hospital in Bannerghatta Road Bangalore is a tertiary care hospital with a capacity of 250 beds. In 2013, Apollo Hospital spent INR 5.1 million on managing bed lines (consisting of bed sheets and pillow cover). Dr Ananth N Rao, head of quality at the Apollo hospitals thought that the cost of linen management can be optimized using mathematical programming techniques which can have a significant impact on the bottom-line of the hospital. Each bed in the hospital is given two bed sheets and a pillow cover; however, there was 2% additional usage of linen owing to various reasons such as linen becoming dirty, wet, etc. Apollo hospital keeps a safety stock of linen for two days and any linen sent for washing is returned on day d + 2. The objective is to develop a mathematical programming model to minimize the total cost of linen management.
Authors :: Apoorva Sara Prakash, Muthu Solayappan, Dinesh Kumar Unnikrishnan
Swot Analysis of "Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals" written by Apoorva Sara Prakash, Muthu Solayappan, Dinesh Kumar Unnikrishnan includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Linen Apollo facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Operations management and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Linen Apollo, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Linen Apollo 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 Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Linen Apollo
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 Linen Apollo
Strengths Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Linen Apollo in Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Linen Apollo
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Linen Apollo does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Linen Apollo has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Linen Apollo to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Linen Apollo to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Linen Apollo is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Linen Apollo in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Linen Apollo 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 Apoorva Sara Prakash, Muthu Solayappan, Dinesh Kumar Unnikrishnan 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Linen Apollo is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Linen Apollo 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Linen Apollo 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 Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Linen Apollo 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 Linen Apollo is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Linen Apollo 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 Linen Apollo in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Linen Apollo 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 Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals, in the dynamic environment Linen Apollo has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Linen Apollo has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Linen Apollo is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Linen Apollo 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. Linen Apollo 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals, it seems that the employees of Linen Apollo 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Linen Apollo 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Linen Apollo 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Linen Apollo 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals 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 Linen Apollo has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Linen Apollo, firm in the HBR case study Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Linen Apollo products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Linen Apollo needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Linen Apollo 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.
Opportunities Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals | 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 Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals are -
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. Linen Apollo 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. Linen Apollo 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Linen Apollo can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals 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.
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 Linen Apollo to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Leadership & Managing People industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Linen Apollo can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Linen Apollo to increase its market reach. Linen Apollo 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Linen Apollo can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Linen Apollo 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Linen Apollo 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
– Linen Apollo 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Linen Apollo 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.
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. Linen Apollo can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Linen Apollo 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, Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Developing new processes and practices
– Linen Apollo 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.
Threats Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Linen Apollo 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.
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 Linen Apollo.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Linen Apollo 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 Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals .
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Linen Apollo is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Linen Apollo 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.
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. Linen Apollo needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Linen Apollo has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Linen Apollo 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 Linen Apollo
– 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 Linen Apollo.
Environmental challenges
– Linen Apollo 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. Linen Apollo 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 Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals, Linen Apollo 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 .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Linen Apollo 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals 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 Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals 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 Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals 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 Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals 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 Managing Linen at Apollo Hospitals 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 Linen Apollo needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
