Executive Summary
Pulmonary services consultants is a mobile diagnostic unit to perform pulmonary tests, the company is providing pulmonary tests services to doctors in their own office, this means that the doctors do not have to send patients to other established clinics or public hospitals to have them do the pulmonary test anymore. The company will enjoy the benefit of being the only mobile diagnostic unit in the area since within a radius of 200 miles; there is no other company that has the same business.
Therefore the pulmonary consultant company is a brick and mortar and mail order mobile pulmonary unit that offers pulmonary tests to various categories of patients. The pulmonary consultant company can offer its services to patients at reduced prices through the use of operating efficiency and elimination of unnecessary delays for patients that self-pay the services for medication.
Our mission is to provide the finest medical pulmonary services available. When the company will put this in place and the consultations services will exceed the expectations of their customers who are the patients. Pulmonary consultants will offer high-quality services, low era rates, medical testing. Furthermore, the company will concentrate on many market segments for instance patients who have a history of asthma, increasing shortness of breath, smokers, and others.
By having a larger all their consultations and services run by doctors in various hospitals the company can gain economies of scale by testing many patients with less labor required per consultation. Since many people are having problems with their lungs, day in day out, therefore this means that such a trend will lead to the rapid growth of the company since the patients can get all their treatment under one roof.
When a patient walks into a doctor for medication other illness, he or she will end up being tested using the Spirometer for the lung condition and in addition to that, the patients would refer a place where they can get all the consultations without being referred to another clinic for a check which could be easily offered within the same place. The company will increase its market share through targeted advertising to increase the number of patients who are up saving time and money on a pricey, necessary expense looking for pulmonary tests.
Situation Analysis
The company will be going into its initial business year. A good marketing plan will be an important part of the push to profitability and sustainable success. The company offers high-quality medical consultations services. The basic market need is experienced medical-specific consultations, and testing services for doctors who will be in their various stations of work.
Therefore pulmonary consultation Services Company has decided to offer its services to the medical market, it also possesses good information regarding their market and the target segments that they wish to serve. The company will be able to utilize this information to better understand which kind of patients to be served, their specific needs, and how the company can serve them better.
Market demographics
The profile for the pulmonary consultation services consists of the following geographical demographic and behavioral factors.
Geographic factors of the Market
- The company’s immediate geographic target is the nearby city with a population estimated to be around a half million.
- The city has a radius of 200 kilometers which needs pulmonary tests and consultation services.
Demographics
- Male and female doctors
- The age of the doctors are ranging from 25-70 years
- Economically conscious of good deals
- More than one testing and consultation at a time
- The patients will be on testing in a continual cycle.
Market Needs
The pulmonary consultants’ services company is offering the market a source of discounted testing and consultations. This market need is important as many people are faced with the dilemma of using their limited income on food for expensive pulmonary testing and consultations that are offered by few doctors in private clinics.
Therefore pulmonary consultant Service companies need to seek to fulfill the following factors that are necessary to foster good relationships with their customers.
- Choice: Pulmonary consultant service Companies will offer a wide range of pulmonary testing especially by using the most effective equipment in the medical market called the Spirometer.
- Accessibility: The pulmonary testing and consultation services will be available throughout the hospitals and clinics within the area.
- Pricing: The pulmonary consultant’s company services prices will be noticeably better than the local hospital and clinics.
- Customer service: The company recognizes the value of having outstanding customer service. By exceeding all of their customer’s expectations, the company is ensuring repeat customers and referrals from other hospitals and clinics.
Market trends
The market trend for pulmonary testing reinforces consolidation. The whole medical industry has pressure being applied to them by the governments and the patients from different sides to achieve cost efficiencies and to decrease the cost of various pulmonary testing. Looking specifically at hospitals, over the last four years, there has been widespread consolidation done to a larger degree to achieve costs of pulmonary testing.
Market growth
In 1998, the non-industry-specific pulmonary testing market had 654 million dollars in revenues. The last six years have seen a five percent growth in the use of pulmonary testing pieces of equipment, while the next three years are expected to achieve a 6 percent growth rate.
This growth can be attributed to several factors; the underlying driver is scientific medical innovations. As our scientific community continues to make a breakthrough in the medical field and applications people become reliant on medication to lengthen and improve their quality of life.
This conclusion seems to be encouraging as many individuals have a vested interest in living longer and more comfortably. This demand applies more pressure to doctors and scientists to come up with better and reliable tools for testing various diseases including pulmonary ones.
Analysis of Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats
Strengths
- There is a unique current business environment that is appropriate for the kind of business model the company has.
- Excellent and qualified doctors who are highly efficient and very customer attentive
- Relative lower prices compared to other hospitals and clinics offering pulmonary testing
Opportunities
- Outside pressure on patients to undergo pulmonary testing
- The constant growth of a number of people taking the tests
- The chance to scale rapidly for the absence of any competitor nearby.
- Participation within a growing market
Threats
- Potential competition from existing pulmonary testing clinics and hospitals
- Huge technology gains in testing recognition software for individual patients
- The outsourcing of testing and consultation services to national companies and hospitals through the increased technological gains of internet technology.
Competition
The competition takes many different forms in the medical industry.
Chain clinics
These are states or national chains. The advantage to these chains is that they are at better prices through economies of scale as well as personalized services. The personalized services take the form of the chain having a record of any tests that patients underwent with them earlier.
Local hospitals
These are those local hospitals where a patient typically knows the hospital and they know your medical history.
Mission
The pulmonary consultant services company has a mission whose aim is to provide the customer with the best prices and services for pulmonary testing and consultation services. When we follow this belief to the later, everything else will fall in place.
Selling objectives
- To increase repeat patients by six percent each quarter.
- Decrease customer acquisition cost by five percent per annum.
- Increase customer awareness of the pulmonary tests and consultations in hospitals.
Monetary objectives
- Go grow twice for the first three years.
- Reduce the variable cost associated with the payment of staff by two percent.
- Profitability by the end of year two.
- Strong, steady growth profits.
Target markets
The pulmonary consultant services company will have different strategies for different target markets.
The walk-in patients will be targeted through the advertisement in the local paper on the services that the company is offering. The advertisement will raise awareness of the existence of the company and its testing services to the locals. As the pricing of medication continues to increase the company will appeal to the locals to try and reduce these costs by having the tests and consultations with the company.
Another second target group for the company will be rich and educated patients who normally go to private clinics for their tests. They will be targeted through an advertisement campaign in magazines and newsletters that have an older and rich crowd that regularly needs medication and they know in advance what their needs are.
Market positioning
The pulmonary consultant services company will position itself as the premier, customer service-oriented pulmonary testing and consultation in the local area and beyond. It will offer great and better testing and consultation service more than what the usual testing centers do. Therefore the company will leverage its competitive edge to achieve such a particular positioning.
The company’s competitive edge is superior services and thorough consultation. It will be not a suitable move to start competing in price; this is because in most companies the price structure is almost the same, therefore in order to compete in price the company will have to accept the smaller margins which are disadvantageous in that they do erode the company business model and profitability.
In addition to this, the company will be able to reduce the operating costs by not offering all of the typical services traditionally offered by the local hospitals and clinics. The first cost measure will be to ensure that we have enough doctors in various hospitals to be taking up the tests, to add to that, the company should also make sure that it has an efficient and effective Spirometer that takes accurate data of the patients.
The company is able to maintain the industry margins through the use of operating efficiencies. By only having mobile units for doing their tests and having not to move doctors from their stations, this way, operating costs are significantly reduced.
Marketing strategy
The single objective for pulmonary consultant services is to gain market share for the pulmonary test and the use of Spirometer. While there are many pulmonary testing institutions, there is only one other service that specializes in the local people. Much concentration on a smaller area of interest reduces the size of the market, but it allows the company to compete more favorably because of its depth of experienced doctors.
The message that the company needs to communicate to the people and all patients is that it offers the best pulmonary tests, consultations, using the recent technology in curing out the test to the patients. This message will be communicated using different ways. The first method will be the use of advertisement in the local newspaper, while the second method will be an advertisement in the professional newsletters.
The cost or price of the services:
The cost of the services scheme is quite flexible to meets the needs of the customers. Typically the cost will be based on every test carried on the patient and per every consultation fee.
Distribution
The pulmonary consultants’ services company will offer their services in various hospitals and clinics in the whole region through the doctors in those medical places.
Advertisement and distribution
The pulmonary consultant services will be able to advertise in the local newspaper as well as the industry and professional newspapers which will be used economic able population. In addition to that, the company will have a full website used for marketing purposes.
Customer service
Having a sustainable customer base and in-flow will be among the top objectives of pulmonary consultant services. Premium client’s service will be enhanced to ensure repeat customer visits.
Sales Forecast
Pulmonary consultants Services Company will for most of the time during the initial stages of its business by using the sales and marketing strategy to access its market segment and obtain income. The relationship that has started to be developed to the potential customers will keep on growing and bring onboard new customers who will make the customer base of the business drastically go up. The frequent employment of adverts is also aimed to raise the customer base for this business.
Sustainability of already established customers will be natured by the enhanced provision of quality services to them and at some time give the customers discounts as a form of winning more bonding with the potential customers (Ackerman et al, pg 58).
The group wishes to put up a website as a potential tool for reaching a multitude of its intended customers, it will also have a blogging provision where customers can book the services and even comment on what the group should do to enhance the quality of the services being rendered.
The services when these reforms are brought on board are expected to start picking gradually in the third month and it is anticipated that at the fifth month. Everything will be almost there and by the six months, it is expected that sales will be at their marginal rate and this is supposed to continue up to a period of around one and a half years when evaluations should be done and new strategies employed to make the business reach more and more of the then larger customer base.
Factors That Might Affect the Business Operations
- Internal factors
- Weak internal control system
- Misuse of machines and pieces of equipment
- Lack of cooperation among employees
- Employee poor performance
- Lack of adequate finance
- Poor communication skills with customers
- Lack of motivation of workers
- External factors
- High licenses fee
- Poor economic performance
- Competition from other similar businesses
Current Assets
Current Liabilities
Controls
The sole reason for having this market plan is to serve as a printout to offer a guideline to the organization (Philip et al, pg 6). Hence these specific areas will undergo close observations to view how the organization will be fairing on:
- The income which will be on monthly and yearly monitoring
- Quality assurance from customers will also be a critical area of concern
- The percentage of upcoming of new clients as compared to the repeated utility of the group’s services by the clients.
Marketing Organization
The entire process of running the business will be charged with the executives of the group at every specific moment in time with close follow-up by every member of the group, the management will also make use of interns who will be college and university students from Pulmonary consultants services company, their intention will be to give them exposure and on the other hand, they will bring onboard new or fresh ideas which will enable the organization to grow (Ackerman et al, 97).
Contingency Plan
- Risks and Hardships.
- The challenges which might be caused by natural or manmade calamities.
- A change of trend in the market which might see the clients preferring other forms of entertainment oat their events.
- The coming up of an aggressive competitor might cut down the customer base drastically.
- The worst of cases of risk might include having to sell the assets and pieces of equipment in order to meet a huge liability.
References
Ackerman, F. Eden, C. Marketing Strategy: Strategic Management, London: Sage, 1998.
Armstrong, J. Strategic planning and forecasting principles, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1983.
Philip K. and Gary A. Marketing: An Introduction, 5th edition Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall, 2000.