Week One

Corporate Strategy and Market Strategy

Organizations must continually assess their position in the marketplace. In an effort to summarize the short-term and long-term goals of the organization, the Executive Team comes together for a strategic planning session. During the strategic planning meeting or retreat, the following business elements are examined:

Changes in regulations

Technological advances

Fiscal resources

Personnel resources

Assessment of current programs and services

Assessment of opportunities for new programs and services

Strategic goals are both short and long range in nature. They offer a roadmap to provide quality, cutting edge healthcare services to the community while supporting the margin of the organization.

Industries must change their strategies as the environment changes. During and after the economic collapse of 2008, companies were forced to examine their strategic initiatives and make significant changes in their forecasts. Changes have come from a shift in consumer expenditures and demand for products and economic and finance reform with associated regulatory changes. While these changes were sudden, it is predicted that the next ten years will see as many environmental changes. As such, the Senior Leadership Teams will need to establish fluid goals for their organizations.

Mission and Vision

An organization’s strategic initiatives should always reflect back to the Mission and Vision statements. The Mission leads an organization, keeping it focused and on course. Eric Berkowitz describes Mission as “a statement about why the organization exists”. Berkowitz also describes Vision as an “exciting look into the future of an organization.” It is the strategic initiatives or strategic “baby steps” an organization takes that move it from a reality of mission to an eventual reality of vision.

Marketing Strategy

The Senior Executive of Marketing plays a key role on the Senior Team. It is this person who creates a marketing plan that runs parallel to the corporate strategic plan. Each strategic initiative will have a marketing component. This component may be to develop a new product brand, to increase market share, to provide a competitor analysis for a new service, etc. The Senior Executive of Marketing often participates on several cross-functional implementation teams.

In addition, it is important to recognize that many of the same components in a business plan are also found in a marketing plan. It is for this reason that the Senior Executive of Marketing spends 90% of their time researching and planning.

SWOT Analysis – Assessing the Organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats

The senior management team needs to explore whether or not the organization should invest its resources into a new program, product or service. The results may be to move forward with a goal of increasing market share, increasing consumer awareness, redefining a program to meet new regulatory standards, and the like. The results may also be to table the development of the program, product or service. This may occur if the program does not support the organizational mission; if the finances required for implementation are too great in comparison to the revenue generated by the program; if the human resources are not able to be secured; if there are upcoming technological or regulatory changes that may move the project in another direction altogether in the foreseeable future.

As part of that exploration and research it is advised that the organization conduct a SWOT Analysis.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Strengths and weaknesses are internal to the organization while opportunities and threats are external to the organization.

An example of an internal strength or weakness may be the senior leadership team’s ability to promote organizational growth. An example of an external opportunity or threat may be the local competition. Those impact areas occurring internally offer a degree of control and therefore the opportunity for change. Those impact areas occurring externally are typically outside of the organization’s control and therefore are important as they offer an element of awareness to the researcher.

An organization should assess how it is perceived internally and externally, and this assessment should be done annually. A simple exercise can be conducted to gain the input of staff from across the continuum. This may be as simple as placing each of these headings, (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), in a quadrant of a piece of paper and distributing it to the staff for completion. Once each staff member has made a list of what they perceive are the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, they will turn this paper back in to their supervisor who will compile the results for the VP overseeing that particular department.

The same information can be gained from the constituents of the organization through an informal interview process. This is typically performed by the Marketing Department as part of a Community Needs Assessment.

The insight provided by staff from across the organization as well as the consumers is extremely valuable. It is important to know what the front end employees hear from the customers. Additionally, it is equally important for the user of services to report on what their perceptions are from service to atmosphere to opportunities for improvement. Gaining information from various points of contact internally and externally is important in bringing a global perspective to the Senior Leadership Team.

During the Senior Team’s annual strategic planning meeting, this compiled information is shared. A Nominal Group Technique is often employed to take this vast amount of information and pare it down to key strategic initiatives worthy of the organization’s investment of resources.

There are various methods to nominal group techniques that can be used. You may have experienced this same type of technique used with post-it notes or using a point system. What ever process is used, it’s important to openly discuss the changes in the environment, changes in regulations and changes in the bottom line that will drive an organization for the next one to three years.

In such a nominal group technique, the VPs take turns stating why they feel the “Opportunities” listed by their staff are important for organizational growth and, more importantly, are deserving of resources (finances, staff, square footage etc.). Once all of the VPs have had a chance to discuss their respective “Opportunities,” the Sr. Team votes, either openly or by casting a ballot, to choose the initiatives they believe are most important to pursue. The top five strategic initiatives are then researched in greater detail with hopes of moving toward implementation and execution.

It is important to note that the results are short-range plans that should be researched over the course of no more than one year. If worthy of implementation these plans should be implemented in a one to three year time frame.

Long-range plans, while important to the organizational vision and sustainability, are not a focus of this nominal group exercise. An example may be the building of a new distribution warehouse.

This process is also highly effective in keeping the staff focused on the goals of the organization. For example, if a manager wishes to purchase a new piece of capital equipment and this purchase would not be in line with the strategic initiatives of the organization, the VP needs only to refer to the goals of the organization for that next year.

This process is also effective in building morale for staff. If staff are aware that their ideas have been shared and are valued, they will become more invested in the growth of the company. This assumes that the Senior Leadership Team has communicated the strategic goals for the upcoming one to three years to the entire staff.

Week One

Corporate Strategy and Market Strategy

Organizations must continually assess their position in the marketplace. In an effort to summarize the short-term and long-term goals of the organization, the Executive Team comes together for a strategic planning session. During the strategic planning meeting or retreat, the following business elements are examined:

Changes in regulations

Technological advances

Fiscal resources

Personnel resources

Assessment of current programs and services

Assessment of opportunities for new programs and services

Strategic goals are both short and long range in nature. They offer a roadmap to provide quality, cutting edge healthcare services to the community while supporting the margin of the organization.

Industries must change their strategies as the environment changes. During and after the economic collapse of 2008, companies were forced to examine their strategic initiatives and make significant changes in their forecasts. Changes have come from a shift in consumer expenditures and demand for products and economic and finance reform with associated regulatory changes. While these changes were sudden, it is predicted that the next ten years will see as many environmental changes. As such, the Senior Leadership Teams will need to establish fluid goals for their organizations.