Shouldice Hospital Limited Case Study
Case Study
Shouldice Hospital Limited
09. November 2011
1. How does Shouldice compete? Identify at least three characteristics of Shouldice´s operations that contribute to its competitiveness.
The four most important influences on competiveness in a company are cost, time (speed), flexibility and quality. Cost and time should be held as small as possible, flexibility and quality as high as possible. In the Shouldice case we added another category: customer service. For the categories cost, quality, time and service we found several characteristic operations that contribute to Shouldice’s success.
Cost:
Shouldice Hospital Limited operates at low costs compared to other hospitals. Because of their method and that the patients do not need bed pans they do not need this much nursery stuff. Moreover they have low administrative and equipment costs because of the one type of operation they do not need as much equipment as in a general hospital. That is why Shouldice can offer the operation for costs in the range of $954 to $1029 compared to
$2000-$4000 at other hospitals.
Quality:
The low recurrence rate of 0.8% compared to approx. 10% in other hospitals makes it obvious that the operations in Shouldice are performed at a high quality level.
The unique surgical method of hernia treatment is also highly-developed and the surgeons are well-trained and very experienced. They do more than 600 hernia operations a year compared to a typical general surgeon who performs between 25 and 50.
Time:
A primary operation takes only 45 minutes. The short recovery period of 4 days in hospital and back to work after 1 to 4 weeks after operation compared to other hospitals with 5-8 days in hospital and back to work after 2 to 8 weeks is a huge competitive advantage.
Service:
Customers, here patients, also care about how they are treated. In Shouldice hospital they socialize with other patients. Parents of kids can stay for free
Shouldice Hospital Limited
09. November 2011
1. How does Shouldice compete? Identify at least three characteristics of Shouldice´s operations that contribute to its competitiveness.
The four most important influences on competiveness in a company are cost, time (speed), flexibility and quality. Cost and time should be held as small as possible, flexibility and quality as high as possible. In the Shouldice case we added another category: customer service. For the categories cost, quality, time and service we found several characteristic operations that contribute to Shouldice’s success.
Cost:
Shouldice Hospital Limited operates at low costs compared to other hospitals. Because of their method and that the patients do not need bed pans they do not need this much nursery stuff. Moreover they have low administrative and equipment costs because of the one type of operation they do not need as much equipment as in a general hospital. That is why Shouldice can offer the operation for costs in the range of $954 to $1029 compared to
$2000-$4000 at other hospitals.
Quality:
The low recurrence rate of 0.8% compared to approx. 10% in other hospitals makes it obvious that the operations in Shouldice are performed at a high quality level.
The unique surgical method of hernia treatment is also highly-developed and the surgeons are well-trained and very experienced. They do more than 600 hernia operations a year compared to a typical general surgeon who performs between 25 and 50.
Time:
A primary operation takes only 45 minutes. The short recovery period of 4 days in hospital and back to work after 1 to 4 weeks after operation compared to other hospitals with 5-8 days in hospital and back to work after 2 to 8 weeks is a huge competitive advantage.
Service:
Customers, here patients, also care about how they are treated. In Shouldice hospital they socialize with other patients. Parents of kids can stay for free