King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre Strategic Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the strategic management practices at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre (KFSHRC) in Saudi Arabia. It begins by examining the trends and challenges within the external environment of the Saudi Arabian healthcare industry, including changing demographics, the increasing use of technology, and the need for operational forecasting. Challenges such as regulatory norms, skill development, and growing competition are also discussed. The report then evaluates the efficiency of various dimensions for scanning the external environment, highlighting the usefulness of PESTLE analysis and other crucial factors like competitor analysis, resource availability, expenditure capacity, and infrastructure. Finally, it explores the strategy development process at KFSHRC, detailing how the organization addresses stakeholder needs, leverages its resources, and adapts to the competitive landscape through recruitment and long-term planning to address future health needs and increasing bed capacity.

STRATEGIC
and
MARKET-ORIENTED
MANAGEMENT

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Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................1
Trends and Challenges in external environment....................................................................................1
Suggested dimension for scanning relevant external environment are comprehensive..........................3
Strategy development at KFSHRC........................................................................................................5
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................5
References.............................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
Healthcare Industry in Saudi Arab is undergoing many kinds of changes, and it is critical for
the management of the firms to make sure that they are dealing with the changes in an
appropriate manner. Without the strategic planning it is not possible for the firms to grow in
the environment where competition has reached to cut throat levels. Healthcare industry in
Saudi Arab is attracting many types of foreign investments (Yusuf, 2014). In this report there
will be discussion about the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre (KFSHRC).
This report is going to discuss the relevant trends and challenges in the external environment
that is affecting the firm. It also discusses the efficiency of the dimensions to analyse the
external environment. At last, the way in which strategies of the King Faisal Specialist
Hospital and Research Centre was developed will be explained.
Trends and Challenges in external environment
Some of the trends that are having impact on the external environment of the firm are:
 Changing demographics: Population growth in Saudi Arab from 2010-2015 has been
1.85% which is increasing the health care needs of Saudi Arabia. In the time when
annual rate of change of urban percentage is high, it is estimated that by 2050, 88.4%
of the people in Saudi will live in the urban areas. Healthcare companies have to be
ready for these changes, as urbanisation brings other kinds of health challenges for
people (Alharbi, Atkins and Stanier, 2015). By 2050 nearly 25% of the population
will cross the age of 60 or more for which companies will have to be ready.
 Higher technology use: It is seen that companies in the Saudi Arab Health Care
industry are advancing towards the higher use of technology in their operations. From
booking of slots or appointments to doing critical surgeries technologies are being
used in every aspect of the Health care services. Companies that are unable to
implement these technologies are facing a decline in their growth (Al-Hanawi, Khan
and Al-Borie 2019). People’s trust on advanced technologies is increasing at much
faster rate hence they are looking towards the organisations that are technologically
advanced. This can be understood by following stats.

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Figure 1: Importance level of technology for managing health in Saudi Arabia in 2016 by consumer share
(Source: Statista, 2020)
 Forecasting of operations: In today’s healthcare sector it is critical for the
management of the companies like KFSHRC to have control over the data and they
must also have tools through which they can forecast the results or trends. It is seen
that there are many bigger firms that have already started to invest higher on the data
technologies which will help them in forecasting the demands which is also critical
for managing the resources. It is also seen that most of the Saudi hospitals are still
dependent on the paper-works. It is seen that there is high mortality rate in Saudi
where 71% of the cases are of non-communicable diseases like cancer, diabetes and
heart disease hence predictive analytics can be an effective support in earlier
treatment of patients (Almalki, FitzGerald and Clark 2011).
Challenges include:
 Regulatory norms: The regulations against the improper treatment or handling of the
patients have become very much strict. Privacy related concerns are increasing as the
data is stored in the digital form (Saheb and Izadi 2019). It is seen that there is an

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increase in the attacks on the data that is being saved in the firms and due to this it is
not easier for the firms like KFSHRC to face challenges in the handling and
protection of data.
 Skill development: There is an increasing need of the highly skilled staffs that too on
the regular basis. There is a need of improving the technological skills along with the
cross-cultural skills. This is not only necessary for reducing the challenges that they
are facing but it also promotes better health assistance to the people (Alharthi 2018).
Hiring people that are having good knowledge about the technology and are highly
trained will help the firm in enhancing their performance. Due to lack of health
professionals within Saudi Arab KFSHRC had to hire talents from other parts of the
world.
 Competition: There are many small and big healthcare centres that are being
developed in different parts of Saudi Arab and it is seen that with the government
funding more such firms will come up in Saudi Arab in the coming years hence
competition is going to reach at much higher levels (Albabtain 2014). Competition
has brought strategic challenges for the company as they will have to find new ways
and they will have to make new strategies that can give them competitive advantage
over the rivals. It is the competition due to which KFSHRC’s pace of development
has been slow down.
Suggested dimension for scanning relevant external environment are comprehensive
In the analysis of the external environment use of PESTLE analysis as a tool can be very
much useful. There are six dimensions that are used in the scanning of the relevant external
environment using this tool. This gives comprehensive and efficient scanning of the relevant
external environment. Political dimension helps an organisation in the Health care industry to
find out the political aspects of the country that will have impact on the operations of the firm
which includes taxes on the medical equipment and the services as well as policies related to
Healthcare facilities (Al‐Borie and Damanhouri 2013). The economic dimension helps in
suggesting about the economic support that an organisation can provide to its employees. It
helps in scanning the market condition in terms of the people’s expenditure power. It
suggests about the challenges that the organisation will face when it comes to scanning the
investor’s capacity that can help the Health care organisation to develop the resources. Social
dimension allows the Healthcare firms to find out the requirements of the people in the

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Health care facilities. Technological dimension allows the firms in the Healthcare industry to
understand the technology requirement in the organisation and at the same time it will also
improve the efficiency of the firm in the long term. It helps to scan what is the technology
that is used in other parts of the world and can be brought to that particular nation which will
help them in improving their services. Technological dimensions also helps in scanning that
whether if any technology will be used in the firm will it be able to provide desired benefits.
At the same time it will also allow the firm to understand the necessity of the technology in
the market and where people in the market are technological friendly or not (Khan, Ahmad
and Abdollahian 2013).
Legal dimension allows a healthcare firm to understand the laws that has been made in the
country that will have impact on the operations of the firm both internally and externally. It
suggests about the legal aspects of the operations that needs to be considered for not entering
into the legal disputes or face any kind of legal compliances. The environmental concerns are
also increasing and hence scanning these environmental concerns is very much critical for the
development of the organisation especially when sustainability is the major concerns of the
organisations and at the same time there is an increasing need of protecting the environment
especially in terms of waste management hence companies in the healthcare sector had to
manage the waste in an appropriate manner (Al-Shehri 2013).
There are several other dimensions that need to be incorporated in order to understand the
external environment in an appropriate manner. Some of the dimensions that need to be
considered are:
 Competitor’s analysis: It is seen that companies have to perform better than their
rivals and it is critical for the management to understand their competitors and the
strategies that they have developed. It is critical for making better strategies than the
rivals which gives any firm a competitive advantage over the rivals. Competitor’s
analysis also has impact on the future growth of the organisations in the industry
especially in terms of the being better than their rivals (Al‐Borie and Abdullah 2013).
 Resource availability and quality: In every industry there must be analysis of the
resources that are available to the companies and the quality of the resources that are
available to the firm. This helps in providing the justification about the way in which
resources will be used and the way in which it needs to be developed for the future
operations. Resource availability and quality is also a challenge for the sustainability

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of the firms and the strategies that they will be making in the future (Schönberger and
Čirjevskis 2017). It is also critical to understand that the quality of the resources that
an organisation has plays a critical role in giving them advantage in the market over
the others.
 Expenditure capacity of people: It is critical that any organisation analyses the
expenditure capacity of the individual. This is necessary for product and service
design and setting of the pricing strategies as according to the expenditure capacity
health care services will be designed.
 Infrastructure: Another important dimension that needs to be considered is
infrastructure i.e. the infrastructure related to both technology and other physical
infrastructure. It is seen that if the technology infrastructure is good then providing
services that will be easier and at the same time if public infrastructure will be good
there is a better chance that health organisations can reach to normal public.
Strategy development at KFSHRC
The most common way of dealing with the making of strategies is that the management of the
organisation brings all the stakeholders at one platform and try to understand the challenges
that they are facing and the way in which it can be resolved is found out. Strategies are
developed looking at resources that they have and the potential that they have in the future
("Strategic Plan | King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre." 2020). At the same
time it is also analysed that what their competitors are planning and on the basis of it they are
looking to develop their resources so that in the future they do not lag behind their rivals.
There must be a long term skill development strategy as the data states that density of
physicians in the GCC per thousand inhabitants is only 2.8. World Health Organisation
estimates that there are only fewer than 2.3 health workers in Saudi Arabia that is insufficient
to achieve coverage of primary health care need. In Saudi Arabia more than 400,000 health
specialist posts will be created along with 50,000 support and management posts by the end
of 2030 (Al Kuwaiti, Muhanna and Amri 2018). This calls for Company needs to follow
recruitment strategy that is global so that better doctors from different parts of the world can
be brought into the KFSHRC.
All the strategies are made taking the long term approach where it is seen that how the future
environment for business will be changed and what is the need of the patients. Ministry of
health data for 2015 suggests that there are 13.1 hospital beds in Saudi Arabia per 10,000

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people. This is very less when the population growth is so fast hence KFSHRC strategy
should concentrate towards advancing themselves as a multi-speciality hospital with higher
bed capacity. Their strategies are also tilted towards research where they are checking what
kinds of benefits they have and what is the change they need in the organisation so that future
diseases could be dealt in a proper manner ("Objectives And Strategic Plan | King Faisal
Specialist Hospital & Research Centre.". 2020). Before making strategies they are looking at
the past performance of theirs and their competitors and on the basis of it they are developing
strategies so that similar kinds of challenges they could face. They also understand that the
cost of health care facilities are also increasing hence how they can develop their health care
plans so that they will be the cheapest and best in the industry.
In the strategy development this company must focus on developing workforce that is skilled
in technologies such as cloud computing and the data utilisation in processes. This will not
only help in synchronising the processes inside the hospital but will also allow the firm to
look at the parameters that are leading to the failure of the firm. The strategies need to be
surrounding the data that is available with them and the strategy will also be to build
infrastructure that helps in accumulating more and more data that will help in improving the
performance of the company. KFSHRC needs to concentrate more on the utilisation of data
in the areas like storing the vitals of the patients that are associated with non-communicable
diseases so that they are ready with the plans of treating the people in a better manner.
Conclusion
In conclusion it can be said that challenges such as lack of local skilled human resources is a
bigger challenge for the KFSHRC for which they have to hire talents from other nations.
Apart from this trend like higher technology use is another major challenge for the healthcare
companies as they had to invest a higher amount of financial resources in the technology
advancements. Others than dimensions of PESTLE analysis the use of competitor’s analysis
and resource analysis can be helpful for the Healthcare organisations. In the development of
strategies view points of the all the stakeholders in the management is being taken and past
performance challenges are evaluated so that long term strategies better than the competitors
can be made.

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