Positioning and Differentiation of a DaVita Company - Essay Example

HEALTH CARE MARKETING In the present market everything sells by brand s, the marketers are expected to put up good brand products for sale. The purchaser desires to have or own a good brand name product and material with good quality at reasonable and cheaper rate. If the marketers were able to meet this demand of people of the society, definitely there would be a souring business for their product. DaVita from its good service, customer support service and with competitive prices has achieved this. The advertisers and marketers say that they would be able supply anything to customers what they want. It may be right to say that marketers and advertisers are in a position to meet the desires of customers up to some level. In order to provide those customers with a branding strategy, they tailored it to the actual market. Throughout the country, where they needed to build a strong brand, such as in the United States, the goal was to provide that of a campaign dedicated to customer service. Customers like community activity, partly because comments from other users are more relevant and credible to them than comments from you. They expect you to speak highly of your own products and services, but it will really impress them if others also do. Communities also serve the valuable function of bringing users back to the site over and over, making it possible to alert them to new promotions and offers. With rapid developments in the technology available to people, customers will become accustomed to the idea of: production and marketing systems that can tailor products, communications and services to meet their expectations, increased choices for delivery and payment and contacting the marketer easily and under their own initiative. To stay and hold the position in the present competitive market companies like Fmc Naperville Dialysis Center and DaVita has planned to expand its business throughout the US. DaVita is encouraging other companies to advertise their product on their website. A study has shown that DaVita would make more profit in diversifying than expanding. Both companies used TOWS (Threats-Opportunities-Weaknesses-Strengths) matrix to develop feasible alternative strategies. The matrix consists of four quadrants. They are (1) using strengths to overcome weaknesses, (2) Using strengths to overcome threats, (3) overcoming weaknesses to take advantage of opportunities and (4) overcoming weaknesses to address threats. First quadrant concentrates on possible strength-opportunity strategies. Important factors are to hire highly skilled workers, wide brand recognition, customer satisfaction, effectively and efficiently raising capital resources, etc. Second quadrant concentrates on possible strength-threat strategies. Important threats that have to overcome are changing government regulations, seasonal shopping, and competition from each other and other possible competitors, protect business and customer information, currency exchange, etc. Third and Fourth quadrants concentrates on Possible Weakness-Opportunity Strategies and Possible Weakness-Threat Strategy. Third quadrant looks at reviewing product, develop standards up to the customer satisfaction, etc. Fourth quadrant looks at implementing backup systems, implementing policies to protect and avoid security risks. A qualitative and quantitative research is must in developing an Information system. Qualitative research is more of collecting data, conducting interviews, using documents and to understand and explain social phenomenon. DaVita relies more on this approach, they give importance more on the practical out put of the research. Quantitative research involves is of development of natural sciences to study natural phenomenon. Survey methods, formal methods, econometrics, etc., are some of the examples of quantitative research. Fmc Naperville Dialysis Center follows this approach and takes things as they come. Qualitative research methods are more often used as it involves observation of data that helps in finding solutions to the problems. Qualitative research has been categorized into three categories named as positivist, interpretive and critical. Positivist research methods involves attempt to test theory that to understand the predictive element of the phenomena. It involves formal propositions, hypothesis testing, measuring of quantifiable variables, etc. In this type of research it is assumed that the objectives are given in reality and can be measured by their properties. Interpretive research method involves sharing of information and social constructions such as language. Interpretive method is used to understand the meaning of the given information that was assigned to the researchers. It's the research and analysis done by the economic scientists and experts in marketing field yielded fruitful results in the development of different development strategies. The main purpose of these was to develop consumer friendly products that are used in everyday life. Critical research involves finding potential problems in the present marketing sector and resolving them by updating new strategies. Another important factor probably the most important one is the cost. If the final product is expensive there will be only few takers for it. Therefore research has been done to use cost effective products. In addition to print ads, DaVita has broken away from its traditions and introduced other media to its marketing campaign. This move is a response to the increased use of technologies and further improved the success of the campaign. Multimedia was first experimented with the DaVita Dialysis campaign and produced trailers showcasing different services using a director unfamiliar with that given cinematic style. A large scale DaVita's promotion campaign was subsequently initiated in 2006 in USA, DaVita's first market. The promotion campaign involved TV commercials, and online and print executions. Given the success, DaVita launched its TV commercial throughout the country and its new campaign includes more TV spots than before, and there was considerable decline in the print ads that were down from 60-70 percent to about 25 percent of the total media promotions. DaVita decided to communicate with their target market through the Internet because the Internet is a popular and powerful form of communication since everyone spends a lot of time on the Internet, especially the booming markets. They created a cutting-edge website to communicate with all their target groups, giving visitors a different consumer experience than their competitors, and a place where they would be able to find information about the DaVita brand and their products. Apart from their website, their DaVita campaign print ads have gotten a lot of attention from a lot of people. Marketers spend and invest lots of money in developing strategies of different methods to attract consumers towards their product and capitalize the opportunities to make or amass money. The marketers conduct research to defend, develop counter measures to meet the market competition. The ability of the youth to remove and neutralize the technique of advertising is snubbed by the other agency so as to increase the sale of their product. In the market, the Internet is counteracted by the appearance of e-commerce web sites, just as DaVita and Fmc Naperville Dialysis Center use their online sites to sell their products and services. Furthermore, in addition to focusing on the campaign community, DaVita also attempted to appeal to the consumers by establishing itself as an industry leader in the community. DaVita focuses on charity by launching campaigns to raise funds for charities such as TRUST. Aside from regular customers, DaVita has identified other distinct groups to sell their products to. They launched their a promotion campaign in the late 2004 and reintroduced it in 2007, creating unique products inspired by a city in the United States such as Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles and New Orleans, and other cities around the throughout the country. These products are available in every city, with some of the proceeds donated to a charity that relates to the culture of the city such as a foundation bringing free jazz concerts to the city of New Orleans. This is a form of "cause" marketing involving a profit and non-profit organization, and a marketing effort promoting a social cause for charity. Marketing expenses include marketing communications, market research, promotions, advertising, events, and public relations. Fmc Naperville Dialysis Center focuses significantly on marketing efforts to establish its brand in the marketing community. With the various promotion efforts it is expected to spend significantly more on marketing than its competitors. DaVita is also no exception when it comes to marketing, they spend considerable amount on their promotional campaigns. Davita's marketing efforts consists mainly of easily separable campaigns that fluctuate each year, it is easiest and most accurate to budget its marketing expenditure using the objective-and-task method. The increase in marketing expenditure can be speculated to result from the increased use of TV spots in comparison to print ad of the new campaign. While Fmc Naperville Dialysis Center hasn't quite reached their goal, they are certainly getting closer. Their marketing and advertising has gotten a lot of recognition and that has helped them achieve the success they've had so far. With a new marketing campaign and its marketing experience, it is possible that this will drive them to the top. Cause marketing is working well for them as there is demand for those drinks in their respective cities, and with them donating some or all of the profit, it will better their image as a company by demonstrating corporate philanthropy. That could possibly increase sales further because people are willing to buy products from responsible companies, which gives Fmc Naperville Dialysis Center another advantage over its competitors. Davita is the one of the fastest growing Biomedical companies in the country. Its ability to penetrate and retain its position as one among the market leaders in the maturing Biomedical industry is predicated on their versatile strategy. The main goal of Davita is to develop and strengthen their brand. Another important goal of Davita, which speaks to the key values of the organization, is the goal of breaking the stereotypes and deep-seated conventions in the Biomedical industry. References Eric N. Berkowitz. (2006). Essentials of Health Care Marketing 2nd Edition. Alton: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Frick, K., Jensen, P.L., Quinlan, M. and Wilthagen, T. (eds). (2000). Systematic Occupational Health and Safety Management. Amsterdam: Pergamon. Hutchings, S., Hall, J. & Lovelady, B. (2003). Teamwork: a guide to successful collaboration in health and social care. Bicester: Speechmark. Shi, L. &Singh, D. (2004). Delivering health care in America: A systems approach. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett. Sterne, Jim. (1995). WWW Marketing: Integrating the Internet into Your Marketing Strategy. New York: J. Wiley Read More