Executive summary

The modern health sector has become more dynamic and competitive. As a result, stringent strategic designs must be put in place to ensure the realization of the goals and objectives of the organization. A marketing plan is one of the best strategies adopted in the health sector to help the realization of these goals. It entails proper planning of the off the health practices and how the organization intends to realize its objectives. Failure to have a clear plan will lead to poor service delivery as well as a reduction in profits. An effective marketing plan is also essential in risk reduction especially to the health workers and also plays a significant role in the overall growth in the healthcare practice.

A marketing plan will aim at increasing the customer base, promote the organization’s image, and promote existing and new policies as well as promoting new service providers. The marketing plan also aims at shifting the use of healthcare practices from provider-driven scheme to a consumer-driven system. Improved trust by the consumers will lead to increased sales and subsequent increase in profitability. An effective marketing plan increases patient’s confidence in the quality of service provided to increase the consumer base.

Market Analysis

An effective marketing plan is only achievable if there is proper market analysis. Markets analysis is essential as it enables an organization determines its position in the market. After such analysis, a marketing plan can be designed with an objective of filling the gap between the position of the organization and where the organization wants to be in future. Understanding the position of the organization is also critical in determining the competitive advantage and the shortcomings thus planning accordingly. Market analysis is achieved through; organization and products overview, SWOT analysis and customers. Analysis of these three variables will be essential in understanding the position of the organization in the health sector and thus making critical decisions regarding the management of the firm (Wayne 2010).

Organization and Products/Services Overview

An effective market analysis in the health sector demands a proper review of the products and services offered. It is the obligation of the organization to ensure that the services and products offered meets the consumers’ demands.  This is achieved by understanding the target markets and what their interests are. Proper product analysis is  essential for a competitive edge in the health sector. An overview of the product and services offered enables an organization to determine its position in the market and ensure competitive advantage. For this competitive advantage to hold, one must ensure that they know their products and services better than the competitors. It is also imperative to understand the customers’ position regarding the products and services. Lastly, the organization must understand where the products stand in the product life cycle.  Product life cycle position has a great impact in sales as well as pricing strategies. (United States, 2011).

It is imperative to understand that people buy benefits. With this in mind, the healthcare organization must ensure that their products and services offer the best benefits to the target customers. The organization must offer solution and satisfactions to their customers if at all they want to achieve organizational goals of profit maximization. It is, therefore, imperative to have an analysis of all the products and services at hand and determine the necessary changes to fulfill customers’ needs.  The overview will be essential in making critical decisions such as advertising and promotion.  Decisions regarding the right mix of the products can also be reached through product overview exercise.

The product/service analysis forms an integral part in determining competitive strengths and weaknesses in the health sector. The analysis will help come up with a unique selling position for the products and services offered by the organization. To achieve this, it is important to consider several factors such as prices, convenience, quality, style and professionalism that should be unique from the competitors. This analysis should help an organization develop an image or perception that it offers the best health services in the market.

SWOT Analysis

This is another essential analytical tool that enables an organization determines its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. After this analysis, an organization capitalizes on opportunities and strengths and at the same time take measures to deal with threats and weaknesses facing the firm. This concept is described as matching and converting concept. Matching involves matching strengths and opportunity for competitive advantage of the firm. On the other hand, weaknesses and threats are converted into strengths and opportunities.  For an effective SWOT analysis, it is imperative to carry out intensive research through information gathering. This will help determine the actual position of the organization (Palley, 2014).

Strengths

Strengths of an organization refer to the special capabilities and resources that an organization has and are missing to their competitors. The strengths are responsible for competitive advantage enjoyed by organizations over their competitors. To be a leading health service provider, an organization must ensure that its strengths are cultivated to improve service delivery and profitability of the firm. One of the major strengths of a typical health facility is having strong financial muscles. This is a very fundamental requirement for effective service delivery. For instance, with reliable finances, an organization can afford to have large wards fully staffed with large number of beds. This will enable the health facility to host an extensive clientele with different medical challenges (Oklahoma, 2013).

Financial strength is also critical in enabling the provision of wide range of medical services to its customers. Necessary equipment for surgery, neurology, x-rays, radiography, chemotherapy, and psychiatry make it possible for the facility to offer different quality services. Without enough finances, it would be difficult to offer some of these services since the cost of purchasing and maintaining these equipment is quite high. It is also imperative to note that the availability of finances has enabled purchasing of fully equipped ambulances with ICU units to help in transporting critically ailing customers. This leads to competitive advantage since not all the health facilities can afford this.

Another notable strength is the availability of highly qualified personnel in the medical field. The health facility has attracted highly qualified surgeons, clinicians, dentists, psychiatrists, oncologists, gynecologists, and pharmacists just to mention a few. Having a highly qualified team of staff has enabled the provision of high-quality services as compared to ones offered by the competitors. It has also enabled specialization of the highest order that suits the consumer demands.

Weaknesses

This refers to internal factors that deny an organization a competitive advantage over its competitors. They are very detrimental to the realization of the organizational goals, and one should strive to avoid or minimize their effects. The most notable weakness is the staff management problem that is threatening to compromise the quality of health services provided. The organization is facing challenging moments as it tries to deal with the issue of staff poaching. Having attracted highly qualified heath practitioners, other medical service providers are working round the clock to poach this staff from the firm. This will lead to increased costs as the organization must reconsider the compensation to keep hold of them. The organization also suffers in filling gaps in capabilities or service areas.

Opportunities

Opportunities refer to external factors that can lead to the competitive advantage of an organization. An organization should strive to exploit such opportunities to the advantage of the firm. The modern technological development offers the organization an opportunity to upgrade its services to enhance convenience and quality. For instance, the organization may computerize its medical procedures such as surgeries, diagnosis, checkups, record keeping and other treatment procedures. The organization may also improve its communication by digitizing its communication processes. (Chan, 2012).

Threats

These are external factors that could limit offering of quality medical services to consumers. In most cases, organizations have little or no powers over their control but they can only minimize their effects. The competition in the health provision sector has been too intense and thereby causing a great risk for growth of the firm.  The increased level of competition has resulted in aggressive advertisement and marketing campaigns that have become a financial burden to the organization. Such levels of competition have also increased the risk of staff poaching as employees go looking for better remuneration packages. Increased competition can lead to price wars that will ultimately lead to lower profits or eventual losses.

Customers (Customer demographics and needs)

Market analysis must also try to understand the customers and what they need. This will enable the organization to offer high-quality services that will fulfill the desires of its consumers. Customers’ satisfaction will lead to increased sales and subsequent profits. For instance in the health sector, customers require life improvement benefits especially in terms of pain relief. It is, therefore, imperative for an organization to ensure that customer satisfaction remain their ultimate goal. Demographics in the provision of the health services may not have a great impact since health services are required by all groups of people regardless their age or marital status. However, the facility must ensure specialized treatment for the children and the elderly to have a competitive edge (Wayne, 2010).

Environmental Analysis

This is an essential part of marketing plan. It helps determine the external factors that affect the normal operations of a business organization. The best tool for macro environment analysis is the PESTLE analysis that considers the effects of political, social, environmental, technological, legal and ethical factors to an organization.

Political

This refers to the political effects affecting the normal operations of an organization. The political stability enjoyed in a country provides a favorable environment for the provision of health services. Favorable government policies have also been critical to organizational development.

Economical

This refers to the economic factors prevailing in the country of operation.  The sluggish economic growth in major parts of Europe pauses a great risk to future growth.

Technological

The recent technological development in the globe has had positive impacts in the health sector. It has brought about automation and improvement of service delivery to health services seekers.

Legal

Every country is governed by a set of rules and regulations that must be followed by its citizens. There have been strict clinical safety directives and medical device legislation that might have a great impact on the overall performance.

Micro-environmental factors

An effective marketing plan must also be concerned with industry analysis. Industry analysis helps understand the attractiveness of the venture and is achieved after analysis of micro factors that include customers, competitors, suppliers, and the distribution channels. The analysis is effectively summarized in the porters’ five forces.

Customers

This is mainly concerned with the bargaining power of the customers. Customers with high bargaining power will lead to a decrease in overall profitability. However, provision of high-quality services will hinder more bargaining.

Competitors

Every organization must have a strategy of dealing with competition. The health sector had over the last years been a very attractive investment opportunity and hence intensive completion. Lack of barriers to entry has also played a great role in increasing competition in the sector. However quality service provision and quality marketing plan can deal with competition.

Distribution channels

An analysis of distribution channel is essential as it helps determine whether the customers get services or not.  Health services are essential to the whole population, and it is, therefore, imperative to have distribution channels that will improve the accessibility of medical services.

Suppliers

The marketing plan must ensure that the health service provider has an upper bargaining power as compared to the suppliers. The quality of the supplies and timely delivery should also not be compromised.

Marketing goals and strategies

The sole objective of a marketing plan is to increase the quality of health services provided and increase profitability to the owners. For the organization to have this achievement, it is imperative to have a proactive strategy that will ensure a competitive edge. A competitive edge will be achieved through intensive research that will help determine areas of improvement and the standards to maintain. Intensive research will be critical in designing an action plan that will help achieve a competitive advantage.

Marketing goals

The health sector is a very dynamic sector, and hence it is paramount to have marketing goals. An organization must have SMART short and long term goals. A marketing plan is a real time achievement and stipulates goals that organization should achieve in the short run (one year) and long-term (over one year). For instance, the organization is expected to serve more than one million customers in one year.  The long-term objective of the organization is to have a hospital ward with a bed capacity of 6000 patients. This will help increase the levels of profits in the organization.

Financial goals

A good marketing plan must also provide the financial expectations of the health service provider both in the short run and in the long run. Although the obligation of the firm is to maximize profits, it is imperative to have a definite figure of the expected sales and profits. For instance, the organization is expecting to make a net profit of $60000 in the first year of operation. However, these profits are expected to hit $100000 mark by the fifth year. This will be a major growth in the health service provider and will be a clear indicator of the high-quality services it offers.

Marketing mix

This is an important marketing tool and is associated with the 4Ps namely product, price, place, and promotion. For a successful marketing plan, an organization must ensure that the 4Ps offer a competitive advantage to the organization. For instance, the health service provider must ensure that the quality of the product supersedes that offered by competing firms. The pricing strategy must also be consumer friendly to ensure that consumers do skip your products as a result of high prices. It is also the obligation of the supplier to ensure that the consumers can get the product or the service at the right place and on time. The convenience of the consumers should never be compromised. The alarming rate of competition in the health sector demands intensive promotion exercise. Health service provider musty coordinate a vigorous promotion campaign to sensitize potential customers to the existence and the quality of services offered. As a result, a competitive advantage will be theirs to lose.

Monitoring and control

It is important to understand that there is no planning without control. After designing and implementation of a marketing plan, it is a prerogative of the marketing department to monitor and put control measures of the implementation process. Continuous assessment of the progress realized is paramount as it enables corrections and appraisals where necessary. Proper understanding of controls in the marketing plan is essential in determining the effectiveness of the plan. In the health sector, the performance of the marketing plan will be achieved through constant analysis of customers’ feedback. Monitoring customer feedback will have a great impact in decision-making for future development.

 

References

Chan, E. W.-M. (2012). Improving joint expeditionary medical planning tools based on a patient flow approach. Santa Monica, CA: RAND

Devriendt, Els, Wellens, Nathalie I H, Flamaing, Johan, Declercq, Anja, Moons, Philip, Boonen, Steven, & Milisen, Koen. (2013). The interRAI Acute Care instrument incorporated in an eHealth system for standardized and web-based geriatric assessment: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in the acute hospital setting. (BioMed Central Ltd.) BioMed Central Ltd.

International Conference on Informatics, Management, and Technology in Health Care, In Mantas, J., & In Hasman, A. (2013). Informatics, management, and technology in health care.

Manzano-García, G., & Ayala-Calvo, J.-C. (December 01, 2014). An overview of nursing in Europe: a SWOT analysis. Nursing Inquiry, 21, 4, 358-367

Murphy, R. E., Charlie Nor wood VA Medical Center, & Carmelitana Collection (Library: Washington, D.C.). (2002). Lecture to VA Hospital and chaplaincy: Two parts. Washington, D.C: Carmelitana Collection

Oklahoma. Insurance Department. (2013). 2014 health care journal: keep track of your medical information. Oklahoma Insurance Department.

Palley, H. A. (2014). Community-Based Programs and Policies: Contributions to Social Policy Development in Health Care and Health Care-Related Services. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.

Perkins, B. B. (2004). The medical delivery business: Health reform, childbirth, and the economic order. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press

United States. (2011). Management of patient abuse cases, Charlie Nor wood VA Medical Center, Augusta, Georgia. Washington, DC: Dept. of Veterans Affairs, Office of Inspector General

Wayne G. (2010). “Strategic Planning and SWOT Analysis” Health Administration Press.

Walsh, D. (2014). The Nurse Mentor’s Handbook: Supporting Students In Clinical Practice. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Education.

Do you need an Original High Quality Academic Custom Essay?