Strategies Marketing in Cleveland Clinic and CVS Minute Clinic - Case Study Example

? Health Care Health Care INTRODUCTION Health care organizations are planning marketing and branding approaches in order to offer an action for developing effective marketing campaigns though the hospital marketing and branding strategies. Nevertheless, there are key factors considered in developing a comprehensive marketing plan. Cleveland Clinic and CVS Minute Clinic have engaged in an effective marketing; thus, they are considered exceptional health care providers of quality care. Therefore, the paper will explore the positioning and differentiation strategies that are used by Cleveland Clinic and CVS Minute Clinic in marketing their strategies. A concept entailing a well designed marketing offers guidance to the development of comprehensive marketing initiatives, which assists in attracting individualized markets. The target market of health care organizations comprises of group of customers through their services and goods. This creates the need for a good strategy, and the target market is evaluated the well thought-out in order to develop a plan for targeting surrounding community. Therefore, health care organizations position themselves in a way that separates themselves from the competitors. In this case, heath care organizations offer the similar services and products, thus by providing unique services the organization leads attraction of new customer’s base and development of a substantial relationship between customers and organization. Moreover, the organization target market is considered unique through the services and products that they offer in order to attract new customers. Competitive health care industry requires a periodic examination of products and services in order to ensure that the products and services offered to the patients are of high quality. Therefore, hospital differentiation and positioning are considered crucial elements of marketing strategy in a way that differentiates their services from their competitors. SIMILARITIES Cleveland Clinic and CVS Minute Clinic have positioned themselves in a community, in a way that makes them be considered as quality health care providers. Through their well-planned marketing and branding strategies, they are able to ensure that both facilities are attracting new patients. The hospitals have also been conducting periodic surveys in order to identify target segment within a certain area. The hospitals provide unique services in order to part themselves from the competitors. On the other hand, there is a need to understand the fundamental dimensions of differentiation and position in order to explore the marketing strategies of Cleveland Clinic and CVS Minute Clinic. According to Spencera, Joinerb and Salmonc (2009), differentiation relates to the process of adding a set of substantial differences that are valued by customers in a way that can distinguish the organization products and services from competitors’ offerings. Therefore, the health care institution differentiate their market through offering an along five dimensions, which include; products, services, channels, image and personnel. However, services dimensions in health care field are significant through the relations between the employees and patients. In this case, a positive experience concerning the employees and patients can create the difference of one hospital from the competitors. The hospital applies a well-planned marketing and branding tactic in order to establish a course of action for the maturity of effective marketing campaign. Moreover, they have marketing and branding strategies, which are key components of consideration through the development of their marketing plan. Cleveland Clinic and CVS Minute Clinic have an approach that offers incentives for the process of expansion through marketing initiatives, which attract distinguished market. Therefore, they are able to offer services that are desired by a certain group of consumers in the target market. The target customer refers to people who have a high likelihood of becoming clients of organization, through the creation of a suitable strategy. DIFFERENCES Cleveland Clinic Cleveland Clinic (CC) is a nonprofit organization, which was founded in 1921 during a period when the medical care was taking place in a doctor’s offices, in fact, the founders served as surgeons in the First World War (MIT Students, 2010). The hospital was established when the founders realized that they would work together in order to offer integrated, multispecialty health care services. The group practice model has prevailed until now, when it is in a major form of American health care service delivery. Moreover, the hospital has endured, blossomed in a country with largest health care centers, and it has managed to attain twenty-seven health care centers and community health centers and three affiliate hospitals. The effort differentiation by the hospital has focused on multi- disciplinary, patient-centric care, whereby the hospital care units have a rotational and linear care. They also employ a team-based care structures comprising of a Care team and Specialty Center. The hospital has also focused on providing a layer of services that surpasses the basic care since the patients are centric culture. In addition, the hospital continues to expand its services by providing and pursuing innovative and quality improvements in order to differentiate itself from competitors. The organization also has internal operations strategy and a system that supports the company’s business strategy through the provision of high quality and complex care. Externally, the hospital supports differentiation on the aspects of positioning in a competitive environment; thus, the hospital continues to outline their operation strategies and systems in a way that exploits the mundane aspects of services to differentiated and offer a competitive advantage. Positioning of products and services involves offering high quality medical care to patients, in a way that they receive a patient first context. In this case, the organizational culture and system entreats staff to offer a service that surpasses customer expectations though a continuous improvement of care. In fact, the organization’s system has become the site of radical medical innovations, though the advancement of thoracic surgery that allows them to offer the most advanced care in numerous specialties. Therefore, through this positioning, the hospital serves the patients through the doctors who refer patients to specialized hospital care that they offer to patients. In addition, the hospital treats patients in a variety of conditions, needs and resources, though it does not target the customers selectively in any segment. CC has positioned its products by defining the customer’s services around the notion of placing the patients first, through the expansion of the products that they offer to customers. The organization has also substantially improved their services and products in a way that exceeds the customer needs in order to surpass competitors, beyond their product of diagnosis and treatment. Therefore, the organization has a business strategy, which integrates care beyond expectations of diagnosis and treatment via the support of operations and strategic management. The hospital has a Care team and Specialty Institute that highlights multidisciplinary approach in a way that focuses on patient’s health. In this case, through the delivery of medical services products, they have justified an additional cost and distance, which is associated with customers who seek care at the hospital, thus providing a chance for the hospital to engage in a substantial competition, in the external environment. CVS Minute Clinic MinuteClinic is an auxiliary of CVS Caremark Corporation, which is a large provider of retail health clinics in the United Sates, whereby it operates five hundred and sixty three clinics and one hundred seasonal clinics. MinuteClinic was bought by CVS in 2006, and the clinics were integrated through a network of pharmacies, but before 2002, the hospital was known as QuickMedx. Its first institution was commenced in 2000 at Minneapolist-St Paul area Club Food stores, and they focused on dealing with a common medical condition such as flu, pregnancy, Strep throat and testing. Moreover, patients made cash payments that were less than the urgent care, emergency and other care centers. The differentiation of the organization was characterized by urgent care centers for family practices and hospitals while the practices provided continuous care to patients suffering from complex conditions. Their facilities have diagnostic ability aimed at detecting the patterns or performing problem-solving operations such as dealing with workflow and specializing clinic practitioners. The organization also depends on the mechanism of pocket payment, instead of traditional reimbursement of insurance claims. Positioning of their products and services focuses on cost effectiveness, convenience and reliability of diagnosis and treatment services. There are numerous categories of services offered by CVS MinuteClinic in order to deal with different customer needs. The organization uses market segmentation, which targets significantly younger females, who are seeking for health care services for themselves and their families. Forty percent of the patients visiting their clinics do not have PCP and total health insurance of eighty percent. Moreover, CVS MinuteClinic has their target market comprising of employed individuals by positioning their services in a way that they are accessible after work and during the weekends. Therefore, their services and products are offered through a set of limited services that allows streamlining and delivery of retail services. They are focused on providing challenges of dealing with dynamism of demand and expectations of customers. This has led to growth of customer expectations and current strategy of businesses operations, which is stressed to balancing new patient requirement through a delivery process. In conclusion, the paper has explored issues related to positioning and differentiation strategies that are used by Cleveland Clinic and CVS Minute Clinic in marketing their strategies. It has also compared these organizations by identifying the similarities and differences in their strategies. References MIT Students. (2010). Health Care Business Models and Operations Strategy: A Comparative Study of Cleveland Clinic and CVS Minute clinic. MIT OpenCourseWare. Retrieved on 4 November 2012 from: Spencera, S, Joinerb, T and Salmonc, S. (2009). Differentiation Strategy, Performance Measurement Systems and Organizational Performance: Evidence from Australia. International Journal of Business, 14(1): 84-103. Retrieved on 4 November 2012 from: < http://www.craig.csufresno.edu/International_Programs/JC/IJB/Volumes/Volume%2014/V141-5.pdf> Read More