Statement of the Problem
The case study examines Walmart Health, an emerging healthcare initiative introduced by the retailer. The authors suggest that Walmart became involved in the healthcare industry by encouraging its employees to earn bachelor’s degrees in health services/administration by subsidizing their education within its Live Better U program. Additionally, Walmart promoted health by providing full coverage for surgical procedures offered at partner hospitals. Walmart Health clinics began with the appointment of Sean Slovenski as President of Health and Wellness (Huckman et al., 2020). The major problem areas were maintenance of affordable and transparent health services and improvement of customer experience. The issues are supported with relevant evidence and are clearly within the organization’s purview, as they belong to the competence of Walmart’s healthcare sector. However, the problem areas are not defined in order of importance, and there is no defense of the relative order of importance in the article.
Immediate issues, such as site selection and early performance objectives, are discussed in the article with the possible solutions explained. Long-range problems are also considered and included the improvement of customer experience via purpose-driven activities of the healthcare team. The problems represented in the article are not categorized but might be determined as short-term and long-term improvement areas. The central underlying problem is the proper application of Walmart’s traditional everyday low price (EDLP) and customer care strategies to healthcare/retail clinics to address public health issues during the pandemic. The issue was not isolated or explicitly stated, but it can be recognized based on the company’s core business strategy. The problem statement does not contain any generalized statements, and it is not specific, concise, or adequate, as the reader has to define it based on the questions presented in the introduction.
Analysis of the Problem
The major factors initiating the problem are identified and include the lack of adequate healthcare in rural regions, active partnerships with prominent laboratories and mental health service providers, and epidemic-related model adjustments. The authors do not offer any distinction between underlying causes and mere symptoms. Most facts listed in the article are connected to the main problem and may not be considered unimportant, as they all expand the reader’s understanding of the issue. The facts support the problem statement in a meaningful way, but they might lack clarity and require additional evidence and examples to be properly developed and provide more insights into the main problem. For instance, the section of the article describing the launch of the clinics in Georgia and Dallas is supported with extensive background descriptions and facts, while retail clinic openings before COVID-19 are not discussed.
There is a considerable number of analysis tools substantiating important assertions as the authors included relevant control charts to expose monthly visit volume, county population, Walmart’s financial and operating data, and key statistics. The article also contains information on primary care provider/patient ratios (PCP/population) explaining the demand for retail clinics in the area. To collect the quantitative data, the researchers employed observation methods and customer satisfaction surveys. The sources of data/information used in the analytical tools are properly cited, and the research contains references to the original authors and organizations. The facts are logically developed according to the timeline of events from the origins of Walmart Health to the retailer’s response to COVID-19 to strengthen the main points. The analysis is complete as it covers the major problem, applicable key issues, and the company’s steps towards improvement during the pandemic. The analysis lays the groundwork to develop the set of recommendations for businesses affected by COVID-19 since it exposes Walmart’s experience with organizational changes and describes the retailer’s scaling efforts in detail.
Reference
Huckman, R. S., Min, Y., & Thiel, M. (2020). Walmart health: Scaling during a pandemic. Harvard Business School, Case 621-061.