Case Analysis: Strategic Planning at Multistate Health Corporation
The MHC’s strategy in terms of market position is to adopt the new technology for successful and efficient health service delivery at a lower cost than other health service providers in the market. It aims at improving efficiency in terms of service provision to the less fortunate members of the community as well as outpatient services.
Therefore, it aims at charging same prices as other health service providers but make use of efficient technology and efficient service provision to cut down on hospital costs by reducing patient recovery periods to earn profits. It also intends to market the technology to other health service providers to earn revenues. MHC is operating in a competitive external environment where prices are regulated by federal state governments.
The environment is competitive with changes in products and services thus need for new competitive strategies. The new strategies matches the environment in a way that MHC will out compete its competitors from the benefits of new technology and the efficiency in service provision due to reduction in hospital costs (Blanchard, & Thacker, 2009).
MHC currently uses a decentralized structure whereby its branches operate as separate profit oriented entities with deliverance of reports to the central management.
Under the competitive strategy proposed, the current structure has to be adjusted to a more centralized structure so that the subsidiary corporations can fit uniform implementation of the strategy to all the regions and divisions. Some of the structural adjustments that should be made include the following.
Centralization of operations because the current system does not provide favorable environment for partnerships between the subsidiary corporations and the regions, getting the right personnel to carry out the implementation, harmonization of the whole system to be able to point out the scattered personnel with capabilities to implement the new competitive strategy and adjustments to the human resource system to come up with a coherent HR system that will fit the right personnel in the right places (Blanchard, & Thacker, 2009).
One area where management KSAs is not aligned with effective implementation of the competitive strategy is the evaluation and comparison of the KSA required of the management in different divisions. There are no systems for doing this since the management in different divisions has different responsibilities and none of them knows about these differences.
This poses a challenge to implementation of the competitive strategy. Another area is on performance evaluation. Data collection is manual and evaluation of performance is inconsistent and this poses a risk to selection of capable management to implement the competitive strategy (Blanchard, & Thacker, 2009).
MHC should come up with a harmonized HRPS that will define the responsibilities of the management and information provided to the whole organization so that leaders may know their role as well as that of their counterparts. The system will also ensure effective evaluation of the performance of management so that effective managers can be picked upon to implement the competitive strategies (Blanchard, & Thacker, 2009).
Given the implementation responsibility, I would recommend that the planning team change the current decentralized structure to a more centralized structure in order to improve the selection and filling of vacant positions, develop a succession plan that will translate the old system to anew system, forecast and identify the critical skills as well as ability needs and deficiencies for strategy implementation and come up with a development system that will improve the careers of organizations’ employees through training and in-service provision.
All of the above should be geared towards attaining the mission of the organization (Langbein, 2007).
The HR unit should make sure that information about work force readiness to implement the competitive strategy is available and well updated. It should also provide input in order to manage any changes that may arise following the directions of the new strategy. It should ensure that appropriate HRIS in put in place to consolidate the employees data across all the divisions for evaluation and accommodation purposes.
The HRD should make sure that the work force to implement the strategy is well developed and equipped with the knowledge and skills through effective training (capabilities).
But since capabilities of work force alone can not lead to good performance, it is advisable for the HRD to link with OD (whose duty is to manage performance) in order to come up with ultimate success in the new strategy implementation. A combination of performance management and capabilities of workers leads to success in strategy implementation (Langbein, 2007).
References
Blanchard, N. P, & Thacker, J. W. (2009). Effective Training: Systems, Strategies and Practices. (4th Ed). Prentice Hall: Pearson Education International.
Langbein, W. (2007). Planning systems and strategies for human resources. Cambridge: MIT Press.