Competitive Analysis Paper
Topic: Identify competitiveness of an organization within the health services industry and make recommendations to continuously create shared value. Recommendations will count for more than half of your competitive analysis paper grade–use your two pages of text accordingly.
Purpose: To make recommendations to an organization about its ability to continuously created shared value given the changing demands and expectations within the health services industry.
Sources other than the textbook and articles in the syllabus that are used in any written assignment must be cited in a footnote or endnote. Use any standard format for citations. Failure to properly cite outside sources violates the GWU Code of Academic Integrity and is subject to sanctions.
1. Select an HSO with which you are associated (or about which you have specific knowledge). An appropriate HSO might be a hospital, a medical equipment supplier, a specialty service organization (podiatrist, psychologist, radiology, etc.), etc. The HSO need not be named;
2. Create a 5-forces analysis (can be used from the first assignment), functional analysis and DuPont analysis of the HSO. From these analyses, state in your own words the firm’s strategy and its unique advantages;
3. Discuss why or why not your analyses (5-forces, functional, DuPont) contradict, or support, the HSO’s explicitly stated (intended) organizational philosophy, mission and/or vision statement of how it creates value;
4. Identify the gaps (where one is silent, but the other speaks; where there is an untapped opportunity that the firm is uniquely positioned to create value); and
5. Make a viable recommendation about the HSO’s strategy (e.g., growth, status quo or retrenchment) with an implementation schema.
Strategy Formulation and Implementation – Professor Griffin
Following are a number of questions focusing on different levels of analysis to consider when strategically analyzing any company. Thinking through each of questions is meant to be helpful and illustrative. You do not need to explicitly answer the questions.
Industry
How well is the organization positioned in the industry?
Suppliers, Buyers?
Entry barriers?
Exit barriers?
Potential substitutes?
What resources do their competitors have?
Where is the power in the industry?
Organization
What is the overall strategy for the organization? (HR, fin, ops, marketing combined)
Is this a parent/subsidiary relationship, or a wholly-owned subsidiary, or what?
How tightly controlled is the organization?
How often is it reviewed?
Does HQ look at just the numbers or does it manage the relationships?
Does it provide an integral product for the whole organization?
Does it rely on variable costs or fixed costs? What about operating leverage?
Individuals
Who are the people involved and how are they affected?
What are their objectives?
How do the people inter-relate?
What are their resources?
Skills?
Experience?
Contacts?
How much of each resource will they commit and for how long?
Who assumes what risks and for what rewards?
Funds
What are the sources of funds?
Are they adequate? reliable?
What is their timing? their cost?
What are the financial benefits?
For whom?
When are they realized?
Is it a fixed cost business or a variable cost business?
Strategy for implementation
What are the key decisions which must be made?
Price, cost, volume, market share, market potential
Organizational and operating policies
On what assumptions does the transaction rest? How reasonable are those assumptions?
