SWOTT

SWOT ANALYSIS Name: Grade Course: Tutor’s Name: (28, October, 2010) SWOT Analysis Introduction A SWOT Analysis is a tool that is used in strategic planning to assist the organization in identifying its internal and external environment by analyzing its Strengths (S), weaknesses (W), opportunities, (O), and threats (T) (Dyson, 2003). Strengths and weaknesses are internal while opportunities and threats are external. This analysis helps the organization in planning on how to stay competitive. This paper will provide a detailed SWOT analysis for Medhelp Data Backup Services Company. Medhelp Data Backup Services Company was established fifteen years ago. The company, which is based in New York, specializes in providing data backup services to its clientele. The clientele is mainly composed of small and medium sized medical and dental hospitals and clinics based in New York City and its environs. For these clients, it would be unreasonably expensive to invest in the IT technology that is required to ensure that their data is frequently backed up. With its resourceful expertise in IT technology, Medhelp Data Services identified the opportunity and decided to specialize on providing medical data backup services for these clients. External forces and trends considerations: Legal and regulatory There are legal and regulatory requirements in regard to how medical care providers should store and manage their data. The most popular of this is the Health Insurance and Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPPA) (Centres for Medicare and Medic Aid Services, 2010). As a specialized medical data backup services provider, Medhelp ensures that its clients’ data storage and maintenance is compliant to this Act. HIPPA compliance includes ensuring that patients’ personal data remains private and secure as is contained in the Private Health Information (PHI) rule. This rule provides regulations on who should have access to private data and information that is collected by medical care givers in the course of their work. To comply with this rule, Medhelp ensures that data is encrypted while it is being stored in the remote backup servers and even during its transmission through the network. The Data is also uploaded through a Secure Socket Layer. Apart from the data being encrypted, there are access control policies on who should access data that is stored on behalf of the clients. Clients are advised to limit the number of people authorized to access their information to a bear minimum. The Medhelp server rooms where the PHI data is stored are heavily secured locked and only accessible by authorized personnel with key cards. There is reliable surveillance. Because of its expertise and specialization in medical data services, this is an opportunity for Medhelp to assist more clients in complying with these regulations which most health providers may consider complicated. The weakness and primary threat in complying HIPPA is found while the data has to be transported through hard drives such as CD/tape as this data can end up in the wrong hands. The only time when storage is in form of DVD/CD/tape is during the initial transfer of data and only when the client’s internet speed is too low to transfer heavy data. Any additional data by the client is easily transferred through the internet. Technological Medhelp is in the high technology industry. There are business opportunities in this world as businesses, individuals and even governments have to rely on technology on a daily basis. There are a lot of investments that are required for a business to have the kind of technology that is reliable and accessible. The investment is in terms of equipment, software licenses and purchase and in IT personnel. Maintaining an IT facility is expensive and especially since technology keeps changing at a first speed. Most businesses will opt to outsource these services. Thus Medhelp has its strength in that it can be the provider for the businesses that want to outsource their IT services. The weakness that Medhelp has found in this regard is that it only provides data backup services for medical and health care providers, missing opportunities to offer general services. The threat is the frequency of the change in technology and frequent application updates which increases the cost for the company. Environmental Medhelp Data Services has its office located in New York City. The city has a high population and quite a number of small and medium size medical and dental clinics. These medical care providers need to store a lot of data that they gather from their clients. Apart from this, they have to store data on invoicing, payroll information plus any other administrative data that requires storing. Because of their size it would be uneconomic to purchase the required hardware, software and to employ IT technicians to store this data in their premises. Medhelp provides these services for the health providers. The advantage with this geographical environment is in the initial data transfer which has to be done through hard drives. The geographical proximity of the clients, being within the city, minimizes the risk involved while moving this data from the clients’ office to the Medhelp Data services premises. This geographical proximity to a high population provides the company with many clients within a small geographical area. Another strength that results from the geographical proximity is the reliable infrastructure which is essential for this industry. The power connection and internet connection are reliable which means clients can access their data at anytime of the day. The weakness that exists is the high running costs, and especially in renting the premises. The opportunity that exists here is the unfulfilled customer needs. Though there are many companies providing these services, the quality is questionable. Most of the other backup providers generalize in providing all types of back up services. Medhelp specializes in medical back up. The big medical and health care providers have the resources to provide for their own backup or to engage big corporate such as Google and yahoo backup ...