Strategy Considerations
Product life cycle describes the progression of a product through the four stages it passes through in the market (Mohali, 2015). The stages start with introduction and proceed to growth, marking the growing presence of the product in the market. This stage is then followed by maturity, where the product has established a solid market presence, followed by the decline stage, characterized by a decline of the product’s market presence. For the product to remain competitive through all stages, a company must revise its marketing mix accordingly, which allows it to remain competitive and able to meet customer needs. Every product goes through these stages and the time it spent at every of these stages is different between products. The ensuing section explains the strategy considerations the highlighted organizations might undertake for the particular marketing mix variable listed.
- Prucare: A Managed Care Plan Entering a New Metropolitan Area – Introduction Promotion
This product is at the introduction stage, which demands rigorous and usually costly promotion of the product (Soto, 2020). Promotion entails communicating with target customers to not only inform but persuade them to take note of the product and buy it. Prucare should use effective promotion strategies to communicate the capabilities of the new product and highlight the potential benefits of using the product. It should tailor this promotion in a way that distinguishes its product from other similar products in the market, which will also aid in brand awareness and development and start cultivating loyalty in the potential customers. It should seek effective pricing strategies such as penetration pricing to establish the introductory price of its product.
- Health Stop – An Urgent Care Clinic – Mature Product
This product is at the maturity stage, which means that the company has to make some major decision about the product to further solidify its presence in the market. At this stage, customers are already familiar with the product as it has already gained substantive market recognition and been accepted by the customers as reliable. At this stage, the company’s marketing objective should be seeking new users to add to the already existing customers. Gaining more market penetration at this stage may even mean developing better variations of the services it provides because the customers are already acclimatized to the services it provides and might be seeking other more inclusive alternatives. It may have to provide its customers with additional incentives to win their support over other newer clinics that are beginning to dominate the market. If the competition gets too intense, the clinic may reduce its prices to retain its old customers, attract new clients and beat competitors.
- Community Hospital – a 234-bed facility with 7 pediatric beds: Decline Product
The community hospital is at the worst stage of the product life cycle because its services have ceased growing and customers are most likely seeking better alternatives because they feel the services its provides do not match up to what they expect. Such a decline may be caused by failure to update its services or incorporate new approaches of delivering the services to the level the customers expect them. Due to such stagnation, there is high likelihood that the services the hospital is offering at this stage are consuming a huge share of financial resources and management time without returning these business costs. It is likely that the hospital is offering outmoded services, for instance, using manual methods to keep patient records instead of relying on electronic methods such as electronic health records.
The importance of such information management approaches cannot be understated. For instance, King, Patel, Jamoom & Furukawa (2014) note that by using electronic health records increases operational efficiency and leads to better patient outcomes. It may be that customers find the services at the hospital slow and inconvenient, hence opting to visit more user-friendly institutions. Hence, the hospital should seek to drop any redundant services and perhaps contract with another agency to improve its services because there is a high likelihood that a large proportion of its customers may still have a significant emotional attachment to the hospital.