Stopping Outshopping

 

Stopping Outshopping

 

Based on the textbook’s summary of Timothy’s philosophy of continually striving for excellence, was Scarlet Hospital was prepared to compete with the establishments in Salem

Scarlet hospital was prepared to compete with the establishment in Salem even before the highway improvement plans were put underway to facilitate provision and access of quality health care (Fortenberry, 2010). Timothy ensured that long before plans for the construction of the highway were made, he had secured the hospitals market by ensuring that quality services were offered to patients at all times. The people of Walnut Grove trusted the health care facilities provided in Scarlet hospital (Fortenberry, 2010). Timothy made sure that these standards never went down at any time but he ensured that he called meetings with the senior management of the hospital to plan on strategies that can be put in place in order to continue offering quality services to the people of Walnut Grove. For 14 years in Scarlet hospital, timothy had been able to deal with challenges such as competition in the area. Because of these good leadership skills, he was able to predict the consequences of the construction of the highway to Scarlet hospital and he held meetings with the hospital management to plan on how to counter this threat (Fortenberry, 2010).

Even though the highway would make Salem easily accessible for the people of Walnut Grove something had to be done to secure the hospital’s market in the provision of health care. The major threat was the major hospitals that offered better health care in the large city. Timothy involved all the employees in planning on how to maintain the hospital’s market. In order to ensure that they maintained their patients, the hospital put up a plan that involved increasing the advertisements about the services offered in the hospital, using more billboards, using radio advertisements, and using other means of marketing the services offered in the hospital to make the facility more famous and remind the people of the quality health care services offered. Later on after they implemented this plan, other healthcare facilities started putting up their billboards and creating their advertisements. By this time, scarlet hospital was able to maintain their patients in this area (Hill, & Westbrook, 1997).

Potential lessons that the “Stopping Outshopping” case could teach health care executives about complacency.

The health care executives can learn a number of lessons from the “Stopping Outshopping” about complacency. Complacency means that one is satisfied and does not think of making any changes. From this article we can learn that timothy was not complacent even when there was no threat to Scarlet hospital (Hill, & Westbrook, 1997). As we can see healthcare executives should strive to make the health care services better at all times. They should have the perspective that good is not good enough.

Being contented can find the health care executives off guard when a new threat in the market arises and they do not have enough time to put up strategies that can be used to deal with the threats or competition (Hill, & Westbrook, 1997). The health care executives are expected to work with all the employees at all times to ensure that the services offered are better each day. This article teaches the health care executives that they should always be open minded at all times in order to be able to sense danger before it gets them unawares.

The health care executives should always be ready to implement changes in the hospitals so as to secure the hospitals from competition from other hospitals (Hill, & Westbrook, 1997).  A little change is meant to attract more patients and to ensure that the hospital’s patient base is secured. Complacency can make the health care executives not to think of ways to capture more customers and as a result, they will be outdone by any competitive hospital that is established in the area.

The potential value of Michael Porter’s Five Forces analysis and SWOT Analysis for effective decision making, in its ability to help Scarlet Hospital protect its market share and thus decrease the chance of losing patients to other institutions in Salem

The SWOT analysis enables the scarlet hospital to identify its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats before making any conclusive and good decision. By identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the hospital, it is possible to make good decisions on how secure their patients in that region. In this way, important information is made available to the executives who come up with strategies that match the competitive environment. It will enable the hospital management to analyze the available resources and capabilities and also facilitates in the identification of threats and opportunities in Walnut Grove (Hill, & Westbrook, 1997).

Michael Porter’s Five Factors analysis helps the hospital’s management to know their areas of weakness and strength and to be able to maximize on the strengths. In this way, it is possible to identify the areas of success for the hospital. Through these analyses, the hospital is able to manage the competition that they are expected to face (Porter, 2008).

The Balanced Scorecard model

The performance scorecard focuses not only on the financial measures but also on the customer, the business process and the learning measures. These can be used to enable scarlet hospital to reinforce its marketing strategy so as to handle competition in the market. The balanced scorecard will facilitate in the balancing of the external and internal measures, the objective and subjective measures, and performance results and the factors that facilitate achieving the future. This balance facilitates competition in the market (Kaplan, Norton, & Horvбth, 1996).

Marketing strategy that Scarlet Hospital should deploy in order to turn the table on Salem-based health care providers and improve its competitive marketing position: innovation

Innovation can help scarlet hospital to improve its marketing position and avoid losing its market (Manu, & Sriram, 1996). In this situation, innovation can be used in communication to help in passing the information about the services offered in hospital easily. Creating a website and the use of social media can help in making the hospital famous among the people of Walnut Grove and beyond (Manu, & Sriram, 1996). Through the use of the internet, the patients can be able to access services easily and this makes it possible to improve the quality of services offered in the hospital. Through innovation, a hospital website can be created in such a way that patients can get consultations online and those who needs to see the doctor for examination and testing can book appointments through the same website. This will attract many people since even though the highway will make access to Salem easier, it will still be easier to seek for treatment at Scarlet hospital because one will not necessarily have to travel all the way (Manu, & Sriram, 1996). This will enable Scarlet hospital to compete favorably with other hospitals from Walnut Grove and from Salem.

This will even attract more customers because of the easy access to services and the convenient cost. This system will serve to save time and money and also get the views of the patients about the services offered; the good relationship that will be created between the community and the hospital workers will facilitate good services delivery. This will enable the hospital to maintain and improve their market in the Walnut Grove and beyond (Manu, & Sriram, 1996).

 

 

References

Fortenberry Jr, J. L. (2010). Cases in Health Care Marketing. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.

Hill, T., & Westbrook, R. (1997). SWOT analysis: it’s time for a product recall. Long range planning, 30(1), 46-52.

Kaplan, R. S., Norton, D. P., & Horvбth, P. (1996). The balanced scorecard (Vol. 6). Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Manu, F. A., & Sriram, V. (1996). Innovation, marketing strategy, environment, and performance. Journal of Business Research, 35(1), 79-91.

Porter, M. E. (2008). The five competitive forces that shape strategy. If you read nothing else on strategy, read thesebest-selling articles. 25.

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