Strategic Management Plan

Running head: ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN AND SWOT ANALYSIS 1

ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN AND SWOT ANALYSIS 9

Cordial Care Center Environmental Scan and SWOT Analysis

Jason Parkhill

University of Phoenix

HCS/589 Health Care Strategic Management

Dr. Coralene Quimby-Worrell

Purpose of Environmental Analysis

The environmental analysis will contribute a significant role in the organization's strategic plan by identifying potential and current opportunities or probable threats in external settings. As stated by Pourmohammadi & Shojaei (2020), a detailed assessment of environmental factors contributes a significant role in establishing an organization's failures and success. Well-conducted environmental analysis in a strategic plan entails a critical impact on the organization's success in selecting a strategy. An environmental analysis will help the Cordial Care Center determine opportunities and threats and also assist the institution in directing the business efforts to areas they are required to be focused on. When creating a strategic plan, the organization requires assessing the external environmental factors that may influence the organization's success. For instance, if there is going to be a solid or weak economy when the company is set up, there may be a requirement to channel more money on advertising or providing extra services to attract more clients. Identifying the technological, political, social, and economic factors that may influence business growth is the key aim of the environmental analysis.

The implication of Environmental Analysis in the Creation of the Strategic Plan

There are numerous aspects that can influence or affect the success of the Cordial Care Center which ranges from economic, political, and social factors to technological factors. It is significant that the organization assesses all these factors independently, and determines how it may influence the success of the care center. For instance, if the government and the regulatory agencies have secondary restrictions, it may negatively influence the business operations. By conducting an environmental analysis, an organization must formulate measures to counteract and align itself to the changes that may ensue from the external environment in the future (Arthur, 2019). Creating a strategic plan will aid in directing the actions of the Cordial Care Center as a new business. Since external environmental analysis helps a business identify potential opportunities and threats, it means that when creating a strategic plan, it will include specific measures to be used when capitalizing on the opportunities and mitigating the threats to enable the business to realize its set goals.

Evolving External Issues

The evolving external issues that can impact the strategic plan are related to regulatory, legal, and economic factors. A healthcare organization cannot create a strategic plan without investigating the trends in the evolving regulatory, legal, or economic issues and their components. An organization should create a strategic plan reflecting on these issues to warrant successful navigation in a constantly evolving market environment. Some of the constantly evolving issues comprise compliance with consumer protection and environmental laws, which is a legal issue. Taxation is an economic issue, and workplace safety and health laws are enacted by health regulatory agencies (Pourmohammadi & Shojaei, 2020). Implementing a new law on workplace safety measures may impact the already created operational, strategic plan. It does not have strategies to be followed to ensure compliance with the new safety measures. In such cases, healthcare management is forced to restructure the strategic plan due to new changes.

Benefits of Competitive Analysis

Competitive analysis entails listing the number and nature of rivals presenting an indirect or direct threat to a business. Competitive analysis can offer ambitious enterprisers a lucid comprehension of the marketplace conditions in a sector they are planning to venture into or assist already operational businesses refining their strategic directions (Adom & Som, 2018). Conducting a competitive analysis helps businesses get a clear picture of marketing strategies used by competitors, market trends, competitors' product development techniques, and market gaps. In the current business world, marketers concentrate on selling benefits and values rather than services and products. Carrying out competitive analysis during the strategic planning process will help strategic planners identify marketing strategies used by competitors and develop strategies that will help the business position its brand well by giving customers benefits and value.

On another point, a competitive analysis can discover numerous trends in the marketplace, giving a business the benefit of being in a position to spot opportunities for differentiating its services and products. Concerning market gaps, competitive analysis enables strategic planners to create matrixes for identifying underserved or un-served gaps in the market. A competitor map is a strategic planning tool that sets out competitors in terms of their unique service models, determining where they fit on a matrix with extremes ranging from high customization to low customization, high quality to low quality, and high price to low price (Adom & Som, 2018). This is of great benefit as it will enable strategic planners to determine the pricing strategies and create strategies to ensure high-quality products and services, which will enable the business to gain a competitive advantage.

The Cordial Care Center Ability to Accomplish Set Mission, Goals, and Objectives

As per the SWOT analysis, one of the identified organization strengths is the availability of capital. Availability of capital will help Cordial Care Center achieve its goal of providing five-star quality services through organizational innovation. Cordial Care Center will budget its finances well to acquire new valuable technology to provide five-star quality services. A second strength is the highly skilled employees. With highly skilled employees, the organization will accomplish its objective of serving the elderly through dedicated services. Cordial Care Center has an opportunity to the extent of its operations in rural areas that competitors neglect. This can help the organization achieve its growth and development goal through service expansion. With the organization having the opportunity to diversify its services due to low competition in its market segment, this can help Cordial Care Center achieve its long objective of providing services to non-residents and residents aged 60 years and above.

With the organization's weakness of providing healthcare service only to the elderly population, this may make it difficult for Cordial Care Center to achieve its set mission of following the healthcare system to meet the needs of patients by providing services to them. The fact that the organization serves the elderly population alone means that it does not meet the needs of young patients. Ever-changing government policies on provision pose a threat to the organization, making it challenging for Cordial Care Center to achieve its set mission, goals, and objectives.

Responding to Internal and External Changes

An organization responds to internal and external changes using different strategies and ways depending on the type and the scope of the change. Internal changes comprise those that stem from the organization setting and which the organization has complete control. Some internal changes can be related to conditions of the organization, events, structure, systems, and people, basically employees (Pourmohammadi & Shojaei, 2020). With Cordial Care Center having highly skilled and competent affiliated staff members, it can deal with changes related to the operating system as the employees can learn new systems quickly due to their high skills. Since Cordial Care Center embraces teamwork in its operation, it can respond to any change relating to organizational conditions like addressing cases of low-quality services delivered to customers.

On the other hand, external changes stem from outside the organization and can be attributed to politics, customer competition, technology, economic changes, legal and government changes (Pourmohammadi & Shojaei, 2020). As Cordial Care Center is headed by a hospital administrator under whom the care center networks support, it will learn of any new proposed legal changes to be implemented in the future. This will allow the organization to develop new strategies meant to ensure compliance with new legal policies once enacted. On another point, Cordial Care Center values integrity; it will adhere to any economic changes such as tax requirements.

Cordial Care Center Goals and Objective for three years

The organization has set clearly stated goals and objectives with SWOT Analysis findings for three years, as discussed below.

1st Year Goals and Objectives

· Becoming financial stable within nine months

Cordial Care Center aims to become financially stable within nine months within the first year of operation, which signifies that the organization will have to make more income. The objectives, in this case, will be to create a financially stable organization and effective management of funds.

· Acquiring and implementing all technological systems within twelve months

Before the end of the first year, Cordial Care Center aims to purchase and implement all the necessary technological systems used in healthcare settings to ease its operations. The objectives of this goal are to increase efficiency and modernize operations.

2nd Year Goals and Objectives

· Increasing market share by 15% within fifteen months

Cordial Care Center aims to capture more markets within fifteen months, its second year of operation. This means that the organization aims to have extended its operation in many locations. The objectives, in this case, are expanding to new markets and intensifying service delivery.

· Reducing operational expenses by 25% within seventeen months

With technological systems implemented in the first year of operation, Cordial Care Center aims to reduce its operational expenses. The objectives, in this case, are low costs of service delivery and budget cut.

3rd Year Goals and Objectives

· Setting fully operational branch in California State

With the SWOT Analysis finding that Cordial Care Center operates in a market with few competitors, it has the opportunity to expand its services to other regions. In this case, the healthcare center aims to have set up a fully operational branch in California State by the sixth month of the third year. The objectives here are growth and development.

· Ensuring staff specialization and increased competency

As the organization has highly competent employees, it aims to have embraced specialization by the eighth month of the third year. This will be made possible through hiring and training activities conducted regularly. The objectives here are ensuring professionalism and proficiency in service delivery.

References

Adom, A., & Som, G. N. (2018). Competitor analysis in strategic management: Is it a worthwhile managerial practice in contemporary times. Journal of Resources Development and Management, 24(1), 116-127.

Arthur, L. (2019). The Implication of Environmental Analysis on Strategic Plan. Houston Chronicles. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/implications-environmentalanaylsis-strategic-plan-35303.html

Pourmohammadi, K., & Shojaei, P. (2020). A comprehensive environmental scanning and strategic planning in Hospitals: a prospective approach. BMC Res Notes 13, 179. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-020-05002-8