DB FPX 8710 Assessment 4

Introduction

CareLead, a healthcare facility that provides hospitals, urgent care facilities, and COVID testing centers, was founded in 1987 and has grown even more. CareLead deals in, among other things, hospitals, health checks, and COVID tests. Nevertheless, CareLead, like the company, has witnessed the revenues and profits decline over the past few years. Although they have been experiencing double-digit annual growth for decades, in recent times, they have been experiencing growth of only 1-3%. This has led to a postponement of going global as there is now greater emphasis on the current business model.

Business Problem and Gap in Practice

All businesses, whether successful or not, have issues that affect the business negatively. These issues are termed a business problem. There could be multiple layers to a business issue, and it is due to the fact that reaching the root issue leads to breakthrough solutions (Spradlin, 2014). While analyzing the issue, the root cause of the issue is known as the gap in practice. Closing the gap in practice and discovering the gap in practice can pave the way for further success. Therefore, it is very important for any company to grab the business issue and find out the practice gap in order to rectify and avoid the problem in the future.

Identified Business Problem

CareLead Medical is experiencing dwindling revenue and profit in the recent past following decades of investment in improving profit and revenue. The acquisition of the COVID vaccination and testing facilities has not been straightforward since there have been challenges conducting the acquisition process due to ignorance. There is a lack of strategic planning processes in the organization, which is leading to a growing problem with CareLead’s profits. This was a company that had been in business successfully for decades until they decided to venture abroad. There was a poorly implemented and explained business plan that began to really appear as the financial losses began to accumulate.

Identified Gap in Process

The identified gap in the process is the lack of guidance and messaging within the executive level outlining a clear strategic plan, specifically in the area of the acquisition. There is no clear perception of the current business model and strategy that has created uncertainty among the executive team and the rest of the leadership on the specified strategic business model in the future. The acquisition of the COVID centers highlighted the failure in the leadership and strategy. The global expansion was most evident in CareLead’s business strategy. The acquisition was a stepping stone to establish inroads with the expansion. The lack of a clear process execution strategy for the acquisition not only harmed CareLead’s economic performance but also negatively affected the company’s overall international expansion strategy. An absence of leadership communication and a poorly constructed business model led to the absence of a gap in the process.

Current Supporting Articles

Changing strategy in corporations starts with communication. The Corporate Communication International (CCI) study revealed that communication styles are changing from the traditional top-down style to a faster method in an effort to keep pace with change (Goodman, 2019). This article supports that corporate communication is at the core of the success of a business model. Businesses’ communication patterns have also changed over the past decades, and in the above-mentioned case, unless the company adheres to the change with the times, the production and profitability will decline.

CareLead Medical did not evolve with their approach to communication, so some team members would ask what the best things to do next are to continue to succeed and grow. Outlining the approach and business model and procedures for implementation could have shifted the course of growth and acquisition for loss towards more successes.

Strategy formulation has plenty of research to support different theories and methods; process research on implementing strategies is non-existent though (de Oliveira et al., 2019). This paper supports the process shortfall of CareLead Medical, since its CEO possessed a business model without an implementation plan for the model. The business model consisted of acquiring the COVID clinics, and this was achieved. The failure, though, was an execution strategy failure once the acquisition had been done. Poor execution of the acquisition began the fall in profits and the hold on expanding internationally.

Past Supporting Articles

Business models are evolving due to changes in society. Business models fail most of the time due to a lack of analysis of the model’s implementation, making the successful development inflexible (Batocchio et al., 2016). In CareLead’s case, the business model was not properly communicated. Proper communication and information regarding the business model should be there so that proper execution can take place. Without proper execution because of a lack of correct knowledge, the acquisition of the COVID clinics resulted in a precipitous decline in profits because the business model for the acquisition had not been developed and communicated. The focus was on expansion globally, which had a sound business model, but for the model to work there needed to be effective execution of the acquisition. This article illustrates the place of a business model in explaining the steps CareLead could have followed to be successful.

Removing Personal Bias

To properly support and authenticate research, there needs to be elimination of personal bias from the selection of literature. Removing personal bias assists in accessing more relevant research to employ as evidence in arguing the topic. If personal bias is not removed from research, results are unreliable and often untrue. For example, if the researcher is reflecting on the intended outcome of their research, then they will have a tendency towards seeking research arguing the intended outcome rather than using research that can argue the contrary of what they wish. Allowing personal bias in research has many negative effects on the project. The reputation of researchers will be damaged, possibly ruining any further work they do due to a reputation founded on the earlier biased work.

In the instance of CareLead Medical, the issue that was revealed was poor communication and carrying out a business strategy for success. The research done in the articles evidently implies there is a serious need for proper communication of the business strategy and implementation to be successful. The articles have brought forth proven facts that validate the business issue and process gap.

Reflection

This analysis has made me understand how important it is for me to plan my research before I start working on my project. I have also learned to look deeper into the research and articles that I choose so that I only incorporate valid ones that can support my arguments well. Preparing my literature matrix led me to read and thoroughly understand the resources I wanted to use in all my analyses in this course. This structured my brain in the process of passing each test.

I did not just gain in-depth knowledge about the importance of proper research but also gained effective skills to apply in life as an existing professional. Today I am able to find the real business problem in day-to-day work and identify the core cause and gap in process to design positive and impactful changes through strategy and innovation.

DB FPX 8710 Assessment 4 Integrating Current and Past Literature 

Goodman, M. B. (2019). Introduction to the special issue: corporate communication—transformation of strategy. Journal of Business Strategy, 40(6), 3–8. https://doi.org/10.1108/jbs-07-2019-0149

Spradlin, D. (2014, August 7). The power of defining the problem. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2012/09/the-power-of-defining-the-prob

This analysis has made me understand how important it is for me to plan my research before I start working on my project. I have also learned to look deeper into the research and articles that I choose so that I only incorporate valid ones that can support my arguments well. Preparing my literature matrix led me to read and thoroughly understand the resources I wanted to use in all my analyses in this course. This structured my brain in the process of passing each test.

I did not just gain in-depth knowledge about the importance of proper research but also gained effective skills to apply in life as an existing professional. Today I am able to find the real business problem in day-to-day work and identify the core cause and gap in process to design positive and impactful changes through strategy and innovation.