St. Luke’s Hospital (SLH) started out as a community hospital (CH) to help rehabilitate patients who had undergone or were undergoing treatment at acute-care hospitals. By 2016, SLH’s range of services had increased manifold, making SLH one of the few CHs with a comprehensive suite of services, such as rehabilitative, wound, and dementia care. Beyond inpatient care, SLH also offered outpatient and support services such as day-patient rehabilitation, diagnostics and laboratory services, and home-care services. To meet the growing health-care needs of an aging population, Singapore adopted the CH concept for its national health-care master plan, which projected a tripling in the number of CH beds over the next 10–15 years. As more new public CHs were established, especially in the western region of Singapore—where SLH used to operate as the only CH—SLH had to review its role and future direction. To sustain its competitive advantage, should the organization invest its resources into strengthening its existing capabilities, or diversify into new areas of growth? Tan had to provide his recommendation at the next quarterly board meeting.
SATS Ltd., an airline service provider headquartered in Singapore, was the largest air cargo terminal operator at Singapore’s Changi Airport. As a key player in the Asia-Pacific region, it had built its reputation as one of the top air cargo terminal operators in the world. With meticulous strategic planning, it had developed technological capabilities to navigate through many challenges and stay ahead of its competitors. In 2019, multiple challenges were arising from the external factors that had transformed the nature of the global air cargo value chain. An impending labour crisis, coupled with changing customer expectations and the threat of substitutes, meant that the company faced a fresh set of challenges. To fight these challenges, it had to decide whether to further develop its automation capabilities or to focus on driving digitalization within its operations to improve its operational efficiency.
In 2019, SATS Ltd. (SATS), the primary ground handling and inflight catering service provider at Singapore’s Changi Airport, was considering its growth strategy for the next five years. China and Japan were identified as target markets in the cold chain logistics sector. Should the company consider the Chinese air cargo market, which was in a stage of high growth but fraught with bureaucracy? Or should it focus on the Japanese air freight industry, which was more established but challenging for foreign investments? The senior vice-president of SATS needed to choose between the two opportunities.