Introduction
The Change Foundation is a Canadian organization that focuses on providing funding for research and generating knowledge for improving healthcare delivery in Ontario. The organization has close ties and partnerships with other important healthcare agencies, including the Ontario Hospital Association, which established The Change Foundation initially. Despite its stable position among other healthcare research organizations, The Change Foundation has a number of essential weaknesses that impair its efforts and require the management’s attention. This case study analysis will review the organization’s current position, strengths, and weaknesses in order to provide appropriate recommendations for future development.
Identification
The Change Foundation is an organization supporting research and its integration into practice with the goal to achieve excellence in healthcare. It provides grants for research in priority directions and carries out certain research studies. The impact of the organization is mostly local, as it was designed to promote high-quality health care in Ontario, Canada. The foundation’s strategy is to generate funds from investors use them for knowledge creation in priority areas. The organization has two separate programs intended to implement this strategy: the Change Initiatives Grants program, providing small grants to research groups, and the Research Program, designed to carry out in-house research studies.
The Change Foundation has a secure financial base of $50 million-plus the endowment created by the OHA, as well as the potential to achieve its goal through partnerships with other healthcare research organizations. Nevertheless, there are four key issues that hinder knowledge creation and limit the impact of the foundation’s strategy: unclear relationship with the OHA, questionable choice of research groups for grants, lack of a clear focus and direction for future development, and poor in-house research capacity.
Analysis and Evaluation
Given the fact that The Change Foundation’s key goal is to generate funding for research, analyzing and evaluating its financial performance is crucial. Table 3 provides the calculations of return on assets, net profit margin, and the debt-to-asset ratio for the fiscal year ended on March 31, 2006. On the whole, financial statement analysis indicates that The Change Foundation has a strong financial position. The debt-to-asset ratio is low, which means that the company has excellent solvency.
The net profit margin is 32%, which shows that the foundation has sufficient revenue from investment to fund its operations. The return on assets is 3%, which is a fair result given the organization’s line of business and its goals. The capital structure of The Change Foundation is mostly made up of equity, and thus the net income is used to finance all activities of the organization (The Change Foundation 13). The foundation has some liabilities, which consist primarily of deferred revenue. Overall, the financial performance of The Change Foundation and its capital structure provides sufficient resources for operations and development.
Table 3. Ratio Analysis of The Change Foundation.
The Change Foundation also has a number of essential strengths that are evident from the case study. It is a well-established organization that is capable of generating resources from investors and has a rather large fund balance. The Change Foundation also benefits from experienced management and its connections with the OHA and similar organizations in Ontario’s healthcare sector. Nevertheless, the problems identified in the previous section prevent the foundation from capitalizing on these strengths and affect its competitive position, weakening it. As shown in the case study, The Change Foundation now faces competition from much larger players with funds upward of $200 million.
Recommendations
The analysis shows that the organization has the potential to improve its current situation. However, in order to do that, it needs to define its vision, goals, and operations. The first step in the action plan is to establish a clear relationship with the OHA that would include sufficient support and interdependence in research projects and their application to practice. Secondly, the foundation should invest in improving its own research facilities to conduct high-quality research in-house. Thirdly, it is essential to devise and introduce a new process for selecting successful applicants for the grant programs. To attract applicants with sufficient experience and significant impact, it should also increase the size of grants. Lastly, the organization should implement a system for selecting new priority directions annually upon consulting the OHA and focus on developing a knowledge base in the chosen area by selecting research studies that would have the most impact.
As a result of implementing the proposed recommendations, the organization would gain improved focus, reduce uncertainty, and enhance the quality of research financed by grants and produced internally. This would also help The Change Foundation to improve its position in the market, thus attracting more investors. Therefore, by adhering to the action plan, the organization will be able to achieve the desired impact on health care in Ontario. Based on the analysis and the case study, it is clear that The Change Foundation has sufficient resources to implement the proposed recommendations and that the management will be interested in this improvement project.
Conclusion
On the whole, The Change Foundation has the resources required to achieve its goals and fulfill its strategic mission. The problems identified in the analysis are caused by the lack of structure and poor management of operations. Implementing the proposed action plan would help the organization to capitalize on its strengths, enhancing its competitive position and allowing The Change Foundation to achieve its principal goals.