Case Name :      Community Blood Center of the Carolinas: Building for a Better Community

Authors :           Linda Swayne

Source :             North American Case Research Association (NACRA)

Case ID :            NA0329

Discipline :        Strategy

Case Length :    33 pages

Solution Sample availability : YES

Plagiarism : NO (100% Original work)

In early 2010, Martin Grable, President of the Community Blood Center of the Carolinas (CBCC), was ready to move the first community blood center in North Carolina to a new level. In a strategic planning retreat, he asked the Board of Directors to evaluate seven strategic options and provide its expertise to assist in determining the future direction of the center: Increase provision of specialized blood services by 1. Pooling donors for sickle cell patients, 2. Offering cord blood storage, 3. Developing a therapeutic apheresis/transfusion service or 4. Become a Center that provides a reference lab for other blood centers in the region; 5. Improve blood inventory management software utilization for the region’s current hospitals so that CBCC became their sole provider of blood; 6. Expand geographically serving more hospitals and patients; or 7. Re-double efforts to increase donations through additional collection sites, improved marketing, more attention to current donors, and so on. Although all of the alternatives were needed by the community, CBCC did not have unlimited resources. Further, health care reform loomed on the horizon. Clearly, to serve the community, CBCC needed to not only survive, but also thrive in the near term. Which of the alternatives would allow achievement of that goal for the newest FDA-licensed community blood center?