Importance of Strategic Marketing
Strategic planning is the process and time through which an organization or institution defines and sets down its objectives, mission and goals. These are otherwise referred to as strategies which then act as guidelines to the company’s future decision making, direction, and resources allocation in labor, finances and time to the various sectors of the organization.
Strategic planning in any organization is important because it acts as a watch dog to ensure that the company sticks to its mission and goals. This is because the plan will declare as determent for any single activity that will be carried out and is not included in the strategic plan. Secondly, a strategic plan is important because it acts as a parameter that measures how much has been achieved within the speculated time of any given activity (Kotler, Shalowitz & Stevens, 2008, p. 24). For this reason, a strategic plan in a company acts as a guideline to the future activities that will be carried out. Some of the considerations put in place when setting the strategic plan includes analyzing several factors in relation to the organization, for example the SWOT and the PESTEL analysis. These assist in having a general overview of the organization in relation to the environment in which it is operating.
Steps to Building a Strategic Plan for a Health Care Organization
Unlike other organizations and companies, when a health care organization is drafting a strategic plan it should consider the fact that it is dealing with cases that require humanity, professionalism and dedication. For this reason, there are five main steps that should be considered in making a strategic plan for a health care organization.
Hire qualified professionals
It should be well stated and understood that the organization will be held liable for any results that will come out of the decisions that will be make, for example decisions concerning a patient. For this reason, the health care organization must strive to offer quality services to its clients and stakeholders.
Define type of service
The type of service to be offered must also be considered and well defined out. This will ensure that the health care organization only deals with the cases within their capability and not beyond their limits. This is because in health care, the organization is dealing with life, therefore quality service should come first and finances second.
The intended goals and objectives
They should be well defined as they act as guidelines to the health care organization’s activities. They also act as a measurement scale for what a company has achieved after a period of time.
The flow of command
This is a very important aspect in every organization as it ensures that every section of a company’s unit is only answerable to one office. This minimizes confusion and lack of ethical relations, as well as abuse of office.
In the steps described above, a number of things will go into the environmental analysis. These for example will include how both the internal and external environments affect the health care organization, and particularly the external environment. The external environment to a health care’s strategic plan can be easily analyzed through the Porter five forces analysis. These include the buyer and the supplier power, as well as the threat for a substitute in relation to threat of new entrants into the market. In buyer and supplier power, the organization should ensure that it always beats the buyer power by providing sufficient and quality products to them. This for example includes the medication services and check-ups among others. Threats by new products and entrants should be one of the least worries to the organization because health care is not about competition, but providing quality services to the clients. A SWOT analysis on the other hand would assist develop the strategic plan because it will assist the planning committee to know the organization’s strengths, weaknesses and how to counter them, opportunities which the organization should embrace as well as the threats to the organization’s success. Such an analysis will enrich the organization’s strategic plan.
Components of a Health Care Management Information System
The three most important health care management information systems include the Patient Data Management System (PDMS), Hospital Information System (HIS), and Communication Information System (CIS). PDMS is the system through which data and records of patients are kept in the hospital’s data base. This way, information can be retrieved when needed. This data is stored through Electronic Medical Record (EMR). HIS on the other hand is a system through which information concerning all the hospital activities can be retrieved, while CIS is the system that enhances effective communication within the health care organization from one department to another.
Opportunities and Threats
There are various methods that can be used to collect information concerning health care’s marketing intelligence. These methods include Knowledge Management which will assist in gathering inside and external information concerning the field through intranet and the internet respectively. Information Systems (IS) which assist in co-ordination and liaising with similar companies and research done by carrying out a SWOT analysis all help in gathering information for the organization. Gathering of information assists in determining the opportunities and threats facing the organization, and a qualitative data collection and research will give fact based solutions to the threats facing the health care organization.
References
Kotler, P., Shalowitz, J. & Stevens, R. J. (2008). Strategic marketing for health care
organizations: Building a customer-driven health system. New York: Jossey-Bass, John
Wiley & Sons.
