There is a general sense that the company is making good money so why change anything. This breeds a level of complacency in the company that rewards status quo and punishes benchmarking, incremental improvements, process reviews, or any other new ideas. The company currently survives by under-cutting pricing by selling access to its platform that is at least 5 years behind its competition and is not scaleable. Healthstream brags about holding a large percentage of the market space but the fact is that most of its sales are going to HCA-related (Frist) companies. More and more companies are leaving Healthstream for competitors because they have better functionality. This single-source strategy is not sustainable for the long-term. The CEO, Bobby Frist, is at best a part-time figure head. There is no clear leadership in the company and as a result, each member of senior management has his own agenda, non of which is aligned with the other. This disjointed management has resulted in very reactionary strategies in product development, sales, operations, marketing, finance, and IT that have cost the company millions in lost opportunities, wasted effort and lost talent (high turn-over). Unless their are significant changes made in the very near term, the ongoing viability of this company is questionable.
