You are a newly hired VP of mergers and special projects. You have noticed that

Question

You are a newly hired VP of mergers and special projects. You have noticed that there are shifts in the healthcare industry and you want to ensure your facility can continue to sustain itself in the future. You want to make a recommendation to pursue a specific population to increase funding, but you must make a logical explanation to the board. Create a PowerPoint presentation (8-10 slides) and make a recommendation to the board. Use the notes section in PowerPoint to provide detailed speaker notes with your presentation that fully explain each point and justification for your recommendations. Create a timeline of the development of the US healthcare system which includes the following : The shift from physician power to insurance company control. Public versus private sector institutions. Medicare and Medicaid, Prospective Payment System, and the trend shift from private insurance to HMO. Potential impact of U.S. healthcare system reform. Discuss long-term care, special populations and palliative care. Also address insurance types for different populations and settings, systems for measuring quality, and types of providers working in each type of facility. Make a recommendation on serving one of the populations (long-term care, special populations, and palliative care).

Explanation / Answer

The first step of an effective case analysis process calls for you to become familiar with the facts featured in the case and the focal firm’s situation. Initially, you should become familiar with the focal firm’s general situation (for example, who, what, how, where and when). Thorough familiarisation demands an appreciation of the nuances, as well as the major issues, in the case. Gaining familiarity with a situation requires you to study several situational levels, including interactions between and among individuals within groups, business units, the corporate office, the local community and the society at large. Recognising relationships within and among levels facilitates a more thorough understanding of the specific case situation. It is also important that you evaluate information on a continuum of certainty. Information that is verifiable by several sources and judged along similar dimensions can be classified as a fact. Information representing someone’s perceptual judgment of a particular situation is referred to as an inference. Information gleaned from a situation that is not verifiable is classified as speculation. Finally, information that is independent of verifiable sources and arises through individual or group discussion is an assumption. Obviously, case analysts and organizational decision makers prefer having access to facts over inferences, speculations, and assumptions. Personal feelings, judgments and opinions evolve when you are analyzing a case. It is important to be aware of your own feelings about the case and to evaluate the accuracy of perceived ‘facts’ to ensure that the objectivity of your work is maximized. Recognising symptoms Recognition of symptoms is the second step of an effective case analysis process. A symptom is an indication that something is not as you or someone else thinks it should be. You may be tempted to correct the symptoms instead of searching for true problems. True problems are the conditions or situations requiring solution before the performance of an organization, business unit or individual can improve. Identifying and listing symptoms early in the case analysis process tends to reduce the temptation to label symptoms as problems. The focus of your analysis should be on the actual causes of a problem, rather than on its symptoms. Thus, it is important to remember that symptoms are indicators of problems; subsequent work facilitates discovery of critical causes of problems that your case recommendations must address. Identifying goals The third step of effective case analysis calls for you to identify the goals of the major organizations, business units and/or individuals in a case. As appropriate, you should also identify each firm’s strategic intent and strategic mission. Typically, these direction-setting statements (goals, strategic intents and strategic missions) are derived from comments made by central characters in the organization, business unit or top management team as described in the case and/or from public documents (for example, an annual report). Completing this step successfully can sometimes be difficult. Nonetheless, the outcomes you attain from this step are essential to an effective case analysis because identifying goals, intent, and mission helps you to clarify the major problems featured in a case and to evaluate alternative solutions to those problems. Direction setting statements are not always stated publicly or prepared in written format. When this occurs, you must infer goals from other available factual data and information. Conducting the analysis The fourth step of effective case analysis is concerned with acquiring a systematic understanding of a situation. Occasionally cases are analyzed in a less-than-thorough manner. Such analyses may be a product of a busy schedule or of the difficulty and complexity of the issues described in a particular case. Sometimes you will face pressures on your limited amounts of time and may believe that you can understand the situation described in a case without a systematic analysis of all the facts. However, experience shows that familiarity with a case’s facts is a necessary, but insufficient, step in the development of effective solutions – solutions that can enhance a firm’s strategic competitiveness. In fact, a less-than-thorough analysis typically results in an emphasis on symptoms, rather than on problems and their causes. To analyze a case effectively, you should be skeptical of quick or easy approaches and answers. A systematic analysis helps you to understand a situation and determine what can work and probably what will not work. Key linkages and underlying causal networks based on the history of the firm become apparent. In this way, you can separate causal networks from symptoms. Also, because the quality of a case analysis depends on applying appropriate tools, it is important that you use the ideas, models, and theories that seem to be useful for evaluating and solving individual and unique situations. As you consider facts and symptoms, a useful Introduction Preparing an effective case analysis C-6 theory may become apparent. Of course, having familiarity with conceptual models may be important in the effective analysis of a situation. Successful students and successful organizational strategists add to their intellectual toolkits on a continual basis. Making the diagnosis The fifth step of effective case analysis – diagnosis – is the process of identifying and clarifying the roots of the problems by comparing goals with facts. In this step, it is useful to search for predicaments. Predicaments are situations in which goals do not fit with known facts. When you evaluate the actual performance of an organization, business unit or individual, you may identify over- or underachievement (relative to established goals). Of course, single-problem situations are rare. Accordingly, you should recognise that the case situations you study probably will be complex in nature. Effective diagnosis requires you to determine the problems affecting longer-term performance and those requiring immediate handling. Understanding these issues will aid your efforts to prioritise problems and predicaments, given available resources and existing constraints. Doing the action planning The final step of an effective case analysis process is called action planning. Action planning is the process of identifying appropriate alternative actions. In the action planning step, you select the criteria you will use to evaluate the identified alternatives. You may derive these criteria from the analyses; typically, they are related to key strategic situations facing the focal organisation. Furthermore, it is important that you prioritise these criteria to ensure a rational and effective evaluation of alternative courses of action. Typically, managers ‘satisfice’ when selecting courses of action; that is, they find acceptable courses of action that meet most of the chosen evaluation criteria. A rule of thumb that has proved valuable to strategic decision makers is to select an alternative that leaves other plausible alternatives available if the one selected fails. Once you have selected the best alternative, you must specify an implementation plan. Developing an implementation plan serves as a reality check on the feasibility of your alternatives. Thus, it is important that you give thoughtful consideration to all issues associated with the implementation of the selected alternatives. What to expect from in-class case discussions Classroom discussions of cases differ significantly from lectures. The case method calls for instructors to guide the discussion, encourage student participation and solicit alternative views. When alternative views are not forthcoming, instructors typically adopt one view so that students can be challenged to respond to it thoughtfully. Often students’ work is evaluated in terms of both the quantity and the quality of their contributions to in-class case discussions. Students benefit by having their views judged against those of their peers and by responding to challenges by other class members and/or the instructor. During case discussions, instructors listen, question and probe to extend the analysis of case issues. In the course of these actions, peers or the instructor may challenge an individual’s views and the validity of alternative perspectives that have been expressed. These challenges are offered in a constructive manner; their intent is to help students develop their analytical and communication skills. Instructors should encourage students to be innovative and original in the development and presentation of their ideas. Over the course of an individual discussion, students can develop a more complex view of the case, benefiting from the diverse inputs of their peers and instructor. Among other benefits, experience with multiple-case discussions should help students to increase their knowledge of the advantages and disadvantages of group decision-making processes. Student peers, as well as the instructor value, comments that contribute to the discussion. To offer relevant contributions, you are encouraged to use independent thought and, through discussions with your peers outside of class, to refine your thinking. We also encourage you to avoid using ‘I think’, ‘I believe’ and ‘I feel’ to discuss your inputs to a case analysis process. Instead, consider using a less emotion-laden phrase, such as ‘My analysis shows’. This highlights the logical nature of the approach you have taken to complete the six steps of an effective case analysis process. When preparing for an in-class case discussion, you should plan to use the case data to explain your assessment of the situation. Assume that your peers and instructor know the case facts. In addition, it is good practice to prepare notes before class discussions and use them as you explain your view. Effective notes signal to classmates and the instructor that you are prepared to engage in a thorough discussion of a case

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