Hospital Corporations of America - Essay Example

? Hospital Corporations of America- Strategic Plan Introduction In today’s competitive business environment, budget-oriented and/or forecast-based planning methods are sufficient for large corporations such as HCA to prosper and surpass their set goals and obligations. This necessitates clear definition of objectives and assessment of both the internal and external situations/environments to help in formulation, evaluation and implementation; taking into consideration the adjustments necessary to keep them running and functional. Considering the availability and application of various growth and expansion strategies in the health sector, strategic planning is paramount to help in monitoring the progress of implementation and evaluation of different stages as a directive measure of success. Objectives In a bid to improve its productivity in terms of service delivery and improve its competitive advantage in the health sector, HCA intends to improve its economies of scale in areas of management, purchases, production and marketing. In addition, it intends to incorporate new growth and expansion strategies such as telemedicine, mergers and joint ventures and improve on employee satisfaction in a bid to restore clients’ confidence and enhance good governance/organization culture within its institutions. This will improve on resource allocation and enable the management in monitoring the progress of the institution in line with its core objectives of quality delivery of medical services, maintenance of its business position/market share, reputation and profit maximization. Implementation Plan To achieve the above mentioned objectives, the organization requires conducting an intensive environmental scan to ascertain the internal functioning of its institutions, evaluation of its position in relation to the industry’s tasks environment and evaluation of the external macro-environment factors. This will call for evaluation of its technological advancements in the field of nursing and medicine, and analysis of its preparedness to incorporate/absorb the competitive aspect of other stakeholders in the health sector. To achieve and overcome the social aspect of its programs, the organization will analyse health consciousness, population growth rate, and emphasis on career safety and attitude among the employees (Harrison & A.U.P in Health Administration, 2010). To achieve the growth and expansion objective, the organization will look into political and economic factors such as tax policy, employment laws, economic growth, inflation rates and environmental regulations of different states and economies where they intend to expand their services. This will be coupled by independent programs by its affiliate institutions through effective budgeting and allocation and mitigation procedures in the respective institutions. There will be funds set aside, from the affiliate institutions, to help in financing new ventures that it intends to open within the United States and abroad. This will be guided by the SWOT analysis in which the organization will evaluate its strengths and weaknesses in relation to forthcoming opportunities and threats. Functional Tactics In order to achieve an effective implementation plan, HCA intends to combine several tactics which will comprehensively meet the needs of stakeholders in the industry. Policy/strategy formulation will rely on the information from the environmental scan which will be matched with the SWOT analysis to evaluate the optimum strategies. To achieve profitability and competitive advantage, the organization will apply product and services differentiation so as to attract clients from all economic and social backgrounds. This will feature strategies such as lowering costs of medicines and therapies in line with regional needs, differentiating products through mechanization and application of science and technology to promote client satisfaction, and customization of nursing services to be governed by an in-depth understanding of the client. To improve on the areas of management and employees’ satisfaction, HCA plans to incorporate two basic communication strategies. These are: Tell and Sell whereby managers and the executives of the affiliate institutions will communicate a more limited set of messages, first telling employees the key issues, selling them on the wisdom of their approach. The other communication strategy is Underscore and Explore whereby executives focus on developing a few core messages that are clearly linked to the organization’s success, while actively listening to potential misunderstandings. This will enhance reflective thinking among the employees and flow of communication among the staff with which will be transferred to the clients in the process of service delivery. The organization also seeks to adopt vertical integration tactical approach in its cost leadership strategies through improving process efficiencies in areas of clients’ application and consultancy, gaining access to a large source of low cost inputs and optimal marketing strategies. This will be necessitated by the technological advancement and expertise that the organization intends to incorporate in its manufacturing and distribution procedures. This will be coupled by the organization’s reputation on quality and innovation of its services and its highly skilled and creative product and services team. Action Items The top management and the executives of the affiliate institutions will be required to have documented tasks and activities that needs to take place. This will involve tracking of the activities’ progress in their respective institutions and communication to the top management to assist in evaluation of the assessment of organization’s progress. This will include the employees’ performance index and attitude towards the introduction of new mechanized strategies and their views on the working conditions at their respective departments. In addition to this, the organization is in the process of developing new software to facilitate group communication in a bid to improve the productivity of management team as well as aid in customer/client support functions. This will enhance effective and timely exchange of views to ascertain levels of satisfaction by employees and clients in a bid to keep track of its productivity and market share. Task and Task Ownership The top management is in the process of training the executives of the affiliate institutions on the best ways to engage employees on the basic functions of their activities. This is in a bid to motivate employees to work harder and promote their productivity. This is also intended to promote employee’s development of their capabilities in a bid enhance their innovative and creative ways of approaching tasks and help them develop unique strategies in problem solving. Further, it will improve employees’ loyalty to the company as the more tasks assigned to them, the stronger the emotional attachment to the company. Milestones and Deadline The organization intends to evaluate the progress of each program consecutively of which management; employee satisfaction, purchases and marketing will take precedence followed by growth and expansion objectives. The organization restructuring is intended to be completed within the end of fourth quarter this year while the growth and expansion plan is expected to be complete by the end of the second quarter next year. Resource Allocation Majority of the programs will be financed by development and employee motivation kitty of the organization while the growth and expansion programs will be financed by loans and grants from the development partners. Foreign expansion financing will be partially met by merging firms and initial public offers by the nationals of these economies. Much of the development kitty will be channelled towards provision of innovative medical services and restructuring of new acquisitions to meet the HCA’s standards. Key Success Factors, Budget and Forecasted Financials The organization will need to put in place effective evaluation and control measures so as to realize these tactics, deadlines, tasks and implementation. This will include definition of parameters to be used, the target values for those parameters, performance measurements, comparison of measured results with the pre-defined standards and making of necessary changes. Budget will be drawn from previous data on sales and costs of running the business which will be used to give an estimate of the expected cost. It will also consider the foreign policies to capture the variation of business requirements so as to come up with final figure of the starting capital. Using the prevailing market conditions, the organization is expected to operate at $600 million per annum, inclusive of the expansion, employee motivation, restructuring management and marketing departments and purchase/ production ventures. This would translate to $400 million per year as the expected revenue will increase to $ 1 billion. Risk Management Plan The organization intends to spread risks through IPO; spreading the ownership risks and changes of political environments in foreign expansions and joint ventures through mergers. It also intends to revise its insurance plans to comprehensively cover its employees and other contingencies such as fire and terrorism. Conclusion Adopting the above measures will enable HCA meet its objective goals and surpass the financial expectations if the prevailing market conditions were to hold up to the end of the second quarter of next year. Reference Harrison, J. P., & Association of University Programs in Health Administration. (2010). Essentials of strategic planning in healthcare. Chicago, Ill: Health Administration Press Read More