The Product Life Cycle - Essay Example

Chapter 7 2) Describe the product life cycle. How is it useful for thinking about the adaptive strategy of a healthcare organization? The product life cycle (PLC) approach believes that products are like human beings with a life cycle. PLC has four stages: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. PLC is useful for thinking about the adaptive strategy of a healthcare organization because it describes each stage’s sales, profits, competitors, costs, customers, and capital. This knowledge can help healthcare organizations in determining the strategic alternatives that are appropriate to their stage cycle. 4) What adaptive strategic alternatives are indicated for each stage of the product life cycle?

For the introduction stage, the strategic alternatives are market development and product development. For the growth stage, the strategic alternatives are market development, product development, penetration, vertical integration, and related diversification. For the maturity stage, the strategic alternatives are market development, product development, penetration, enhancement, status quo, retrenchment, divestiture, and unrelated diversification. For the decline stage, the strategic alternatives are divestiture, liquidation, harvesting, and unrelated diversification.11) Why should public health and not-for-profit organizations set priorities for programs?

Public health and not-for-profit organizations should set priorities for their programs because they have more limited financial resources compared to for-profit organizations that focus on and can generate large profits, so the former must set priorities that will result in efficient resource-allocation decisions. Chapter 8 -2) Explain the difference between pre-service, point-of-service, and after-service activities. What elements are central to each? Provide an example of how an organization might create a competitive advantage in each of these areas.

Pre-service activities use market research to know more about the customers and marketing research to determine the customers’ reactions to the organization’s marketing programs. Point-of-service concerns patient care and service delivery. After-service activities consist of marketing and clinical follow-up and follow-on activities. The elements that are central to pre-service activities are market and marketing research, branding, market segmentation, pricing, distribution, and promotion; point-of-service, clinical operations, and marketing; and after-service activities, follow-up, billing, and follow-on.

An organization can create competitive advantages in each area by doing the following: in pre-service, by periodically conducting focus group discussions to determine market needs and preferences; in point-of-service, by monitoring clinical and organizational outcomes and emphasizing continued learning; and in after-service, by measuring patient satisfaction and studying how it can be further improved. 5) Discuss the various ways that healthcare providers can define the market they want to save?

Healthcare providers can define the market that they want to save by understanding the markets that the organization can best serve given its strategic resources through conducting focus group discussions, surveys, interviews, and other data-collection methods. Defining the market that can be saved depends on the result of their intensive and comprehensive market and marketing research. 9) What is "evolutionary" strategic change? Evolutionary strategic change means that strategic changes are based on transforming parts, or the whole, of the healthcare value chain to meet internal and/or external changes.

These changes may grab opportunities or minimize threats, for instance.