Scarlet Hospital competition preparedness

Situated in both Salem and Walnut Grove, Scarlet Hospital is a non-profit organization that offers surgical services to its patients. The many years the hospital has been in existence is enough for it to have built the resilience for the unpredictable and unknown future competition. However, regarding the strategy of ‘ending Out-Shopping,’ it is evident that the hospital did not have adequate competition preparation with Salem establishment before the highway improvement.  The hospital’s top executives were not able to plan well for advertising and promotion activities. They were not proactive in the creation of rapport between the hospital and their potential clients. The two activities began three months before the opening of the highway through the creation of billboards, newspaper and radio adverts (E. Dobbs, 2014).  Furthermore, the Scarlet Hospital’s top leadership had a fear of losing their prospective customers to the established hospitals in Salem who were considered to offer better services than the scarlet hospital.

“Ending Out-shopping” lesson.

“Out-shopping” denotes acquiring services or purchasing commodities outside the resident community. In the study case about this issue, it could be imperative for the shoppers within the local community to avoid Scarlet Hospital’s medical services and acquire them elsewhere outside their surroundings. The ‘halting Out-shopping’ case provides a perfect example for the hospital’s top management to end complacency (pleasurable or security feeling without creating a provision for any future risk or danger) is undesirable in a business and can cause severe repercussions in the future (JGunter & Furnham, 2014). It can elicit stiff competition from rival firms. Essentially, healthcare directors ought to update their health services delivery. Otherwise, competition from other care providers will overshadow their business.

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SWOT analysis and Porter’s Five-Force model analysis

Scarlet hospital, in the provided case study, is faced with possible new entrants’ threat into the healthcare market. This is due to the construction of a highway connecting Salem and Walnut. It risks losing its clients to well established, resource-endowed and better-service healthcare providers.  Scarlet Hospital can, however, utilize its strength of being close to the customers in the region to increase the popularity of its services which will ward off new entrants into the healthcare market  (E. Dobbs, 2014).

Scarlet hospital faces strong competitive rivalry from the already well-established Hospitals in their area. No wonder the top managers fear to lose their clients to their rivals. The hospital, however, needs to do aggressive marketing and product promotion to mitigate competitive rivalry (Martello et al., 2016).

According to Gunter & Furnham, (2014), the bargaining power of Scarlet’s customers is enhanced by the institution being an NPO The There are no close substitutes of the health products offered in the area covered by Scarlet hospital. This means that managers should increase product promotion/marketing to attract all healthcare customers in Salem. The Hospital’s supplier power will be enhanced via prompt and fair payments. The institution has managers who are hardworking and can use this attribute to increase market share. //

Scarlet’s strength is quality services, loyal staff, three-fifty bed capacity and being an NPO. The main weakness on the other is poor advertising methodology which does not put foster rapport with customers. Since the inception of Scarlet hospital, it has been operating within the Walnut Grove locality. It is facing the next competition, which is a threat from other competitor hospitals. The institution should minimize its weaknesses like poor advertising, capitalize on its strengths to venture into other opportunities outside Walnut Grove and deal with the threat of competition effectively.

Appraising Balanced Scorecard approach

Proper implementation of the balanced scorecard approach in Scarlet hospital would be essential in the underpinning of a defensive strategy of marketing. This model enhances strategic and results from focus. It also concentrates on the drivers of performance for the organization, improves the institution’s vision, project prioritization and communication and also improving the organizational performance via measuring the essential items only (Martello et al., 2016).

Aggressive Marketing Strategy

For this hospital to gain a competitive advantage over its competitors, the following matters should be considered: advertising, innovation and branding, and good communication. Advertising is a marketing communication system which is used in promoting products and services for a business. Advertising is a crucial element in publicizing an organization to its prospective stakeholders like shareholders, customers, and employees. In the scarlet hospital, aggressive advertising would boost attract more customers, build customer loyalty, increase sales and hence escalate the sustainability of the organization. Billboards, magazines, televisions, social media and newspaper could make good advertising sources (JGunter & Furnham, 2014).

According to Baker (2014). Branding denotes the imprinting or engraving of a brand name or symbol into a product. Through progressive advertising campaigns about the hospital, the organization’s popularity will increase. Again, the popularity of the brand name would attract and retain customers. The brand name is essential in improving the hospital’s competitive marketing position.

Communication is another tool which is essential in marketing strategy. The customers that are attracted via aggressive marketing are retained through good contact. Notification to customers is proper if it is honest, timely, reliable, and free from error and bias among other attributes.  Again, good communication is that which focuses on satisfying customer needs. For this hospital to retain the majority of their first-time clients, they need to encourage them and be empathetic on their situations (Cluley, 2016).

Lastly, Scarlet Hospital needs to be innovative. This word is used to refer to the use of new and better ways of doing things. The hospital should keep on boosting its health services delivery, beefing up the surgical technology and also develop new processes that enhance customer satisfaction. In this way, its competitive advantage is also increased (Cluley, 2016).

References

Baker, M. J. (2014). Marketing strategy and management. Macmillan International Higher Education.

45. Dobbs, M. (2014). Guidelines for applying Porter’s five forces framework: a set of industry analysis templates. Competitiveness Review, 24(1), 32-45.

Martello, M., Watson, J. G., & Fischer, M. J. (2016). Implementing a balanced scorecard in a not-for-profit organization. Journal of Business & Economics Research (Online), 14(3), 61.

Gunter, B., & Furnham, A. (2014). Consumer Profiles (RLE Consumer Behaviour): An Introduction to Psychographics. Routledge.

Cluley, R. (2016). The depiction of marketing and marketers in the news media. European Journal of Marketing, 50(5/6), 752-769.

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