Assignment: Environmental Forces and Trends

Environmental forces and trends (i.e., competitors, new technologies, socioeconomic, population and business factors, and changing regulations) can have a tremendous impact on the success of an organization’s marketing plan. Therefore, it is important for health care leaders to continuously assess the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of these forces and trends to ensure that their organizations are applying the appropriate marketing strategies. For this Assignment, you need to conduct a SWOT analysis of an environmental force or trend and consider how it might impact your own health care organization.

To prepare:

• Select a contemporary environmental force/trend, such as politics in health care, new technological advances in health care, the impact of recession/economic issues on utilization of health care, etc. Using the Walden Library, locate and review a scholarly article that discusses this force/trend.
• Reflect on your own health care organization. Imagine you have been hired as a marketing consultant to help guide your organization in understanding evolving environmental forces/trends that may impact marketing.
  

  Note: If you do not currently work for a health care organization, you may select one that is of interest to you.

The Assignment

In a 4- to 5-page report, address the following:

• Analyze the environmental force/trend you selected. Include how the organization in the article is using the force/trend to better understand itself.
• With your selected health care organization in mind, conduct a SWOT analysis of the environmental force/trend you selected.
  

  Note: Be sure to use the SWOT Analysis Template in this week’s Learning Resources.

• Analyze how the force/trend might impact the marketing of your organization. Recommend strategies to maximize opportunities and overcome threats.

Note: Your Assignment must be written in standard edited English. Be sure to support your work with at least five high-quality references, including two from peer-reviewed journals. Refer to the Essential Guide to APA Style for Walden Students to ensure that your in-text citations and reference list are correct. See the Week 2 Assignment rubric for additional requirements related to research and scholarly writing.

Assignment: Marketing Health Care Services

Strategies used to market health care services are typically different than strategies used to market health care products. From intangibility to the natural inconsistencies in the delivery of services, traditional marketing strategies must be modified so that there is a greater focus on marketing relationships and quality care. Therefore, when developing marketing plans, it is important for organizations to consider the 5 I’s of marketing health services: inconsistency, inseparability, intangibility, interaction, and inventory. For this Assignment, use the 5 I’s to examine the health care service in the Aravind Eye Care System: Providing Total Eye Care to the Rural Population case study provided in the Learning Resources. Then provide recommendations for marketing the service.

To prepare:

• Review the Aravind case study in the Learning Resources.
• With the 5 I’s of marketing in mind, reflect on the health care service provided by the organization and its personnel.

The Assignment

In a 4- to 5-page paper, address the following:

• Using the 5 I’s of marketing, analyze the health care service provided by the organization in the scenario.
  • Inconsistency: Is there consistency in the quality of care?
  • Inseparability: When providing the service, do providers demonstrate biases toward or against patients and their families (i.e., racial biases, age biases, gender biases, etc.)?
  • Intangibility: What are the intangible characteristics of providers (i.e., demeanor, posture, etc.)? How do providers behave toward patients?
  • Interaction with consumers: Is the organization patient-centered or physician-centered?
  • Inventory: How much time is spent on providing the service and how much time is spent on non-service-related activities?
• Recommend strategies to market this service to health care consumers. Include how these strategies might improve operations.

Note: Your Assignment must be written in standard edited English. Refer to the Essential Guide to APA Style for Walden Students to ensure that your in-text citations and reference list are correct. Be sure to support your work with at least five high-quality references, including three from peer-reviewed journals. See the Week 4 Assignment rubric for additional requirements related to research and scholarly writing.