MARKETNG 3004 Marketing Planning : Office Memorandum

For this case study, consider yourself as the manager of a small physical rehabilitation organization. You have been a manager for eight years, and your facility has been the only significant one in town for decades. The local hospital has recently begun a renovation that includes an outpatient rehabilitation center. Factors supporting the renovation include a growing population and changing demographics. This potential competition concerns you as a manager and as an employee.

You have informally spoken about the issue to the owner. The owner does not seem concerned and prefers to take a “wait and see” approach before making any changes to the overall strategic plan or operating budget of the facility. Your organization has enjoyed strong, informal partnerships with the local school sports coaches, the orthopedic surgeon and geriatric providers in your community, although it has never had a formal marketing plan or budget. Therefore, the owner feels that the facility’s place in the community is and will remain secure.

You strongly disagree, and plan to provide the owner with a convincing case on the need for and potential benefits of beginning to plan a formal marketing strategy for the organization.

Compose a recommendation in the form of a 1–2 -page professional memorandum that details at least four strong reasons for a formal marketing plan to be included as a part of the overall strategic plan for the organization. Base your proposal on the case study scenario and refer to formal marketing theories and concepts to explain and back up your reasoning and ideas.

Additional Requirements

Written communication: Writing should be clear and well-organized, with no technical writing errors, as expected of a business professional.

Answer

Office Memorandum

Subject: recommendation on the need for a formal marketing plan in our physical rehabilitation center for the benefit of larger market dominance.

Market planning

Over the past eight years, almost a decade, as an organization we have managed to establish ourselves and win a large market share within the locality that our organization is based. Despite the small size of our rehabilitation center, we have been able to offer our services to large demography. We have been partnering informally with local schools around, coaches to different sporting clubs, orthopedic surgeons and geriatric providers in our society thus contributing positively to our success. We have been facing zero levels of competition since no other similar organization offering rehabilitation service had been introduced for all that period.

However, it has come to my attention as the operating manager that we may be at high risk of stiff competition due to the newly renovated local hospital that intends to include an outpatient rehabilitation facility due to the growing population and changing demographics.  From a managerial point of view, I have analyzed the success so far and can attribute it the fact that we have been enjoying monopoly power in the market. Our customers have no other alternative other than accessing our rehabilitation service.

Due to the potential our new competitor, it’s very recommendable that we adopt a formal marketing plan and budget with some strategies on how we are going to maintain our customers and acquire more despite the new completion that the business is exposed to. In our strategic planning, it’s very important that we carry out an effective market plan. The marketing plan has several benefits regarding the success and existence of our rehabilitation business.

Benefits of a formal marketing plan

Over the past, we have been operating less a marketing plan. This is because we assumed all the roads to all rehabilitation clients headed to our rehabilitation center. We, therefore, did not spend lots of finances and inputs while marketing our services to outdo any potential competitor as we were enjoying monopoly power. Since we have a threat of losing some of our customers to the newly renovated hospital, marketing is a key requirement for our business. Marketing comes along with the allocation of funds and decision making. A formal and good marketing plan will speculate the role and responsibility for different marketing executives who will help in meeting different defines objectives and goals. With a formal marketing strategy, marketing resource allocation and management can be conducted adequately and in the most economical way (Wilson, 2010)

According to the American marketing association, with a proper and formal marketing plan, a business or an organization such as our rehabilitation center can be governed well for survival, its encourages growth of a business since it will employ strategic moves that aim at gaining more customers leading to the growth and prosperity of that enterprise in a competitive environment like we are in. (Gundlach & Wilkie, 2017)

Moreover, with a formal marketing plan, our business with help from the board of managers will set targets, objectives and determine what it aims at achieving, and ways and strategies to employ to get there. A detailed market plan is a security for the future.  Through the market planning, we will be able to identify our consumers’ needs and preferences. We, therefore, shall be having an easy task of translating those needs into suitable services that satisfy them than any competing business. (Greenly , 2009)

Lastly, a formal market plan will enable us to conduct market research and not just operate in the normal and blind business operation manner. Through the research, we can identify the weaknesses and strengths that the competing hospital bares. We will also note their target customers. This will enable us to conduct an effective brand positioning and work on services that our target market considers better than any other similar business. (Sarishvili, 2017)

References

Greenly, G. E. (2009). Does strategic planning improve company performance? Long range planning, 101-109.

Gundlach, G. T., & Wilkie, W. L. (2017). The American Marketing Association’s New definition of marketing. Journal of public policy and marketing, 1-7.

Sarishvili, D. (2017). Main Factors Affecting Consumer Behavior. EURASIAN MULTIDISCIPLINARY FORUM, EMF 2017, 147.

Wilson, R. M. (2010). Strategic marketing planning. Routledge. Routledge.