Henry Ford Hospital's Marketing Strategy

6. How does the current reimbursement level of $140,000 per case affect a decision to use or not use marginal cost pricing? Does the amount of excess capacity affect the decision? Why?

For instance, the IVF technique involves use of hormonal stimulation using the follicle stimulating hormone (FSH). Looking at the pregnancy outcomes following IVM, you find that implantation rate is about 18% and live birth rates ranges from 15.9% to 33% per cycle (Chang et al, 2014). This item of information shows that the value delivered by the technique does not meet the customers’ expectations. This is a typical example of Price > Cost > Perceived Value as explained by Winer and Dhar (2011 p.251). Medi-Cult’s competitors include the large scale pharmaceutical companies like Wyeth who supply the hormones, FSH, used in IVF technique and Medi-Cult company which supply Cell culture media just like IVM.

Cost-plus pricing puts many distributors in a difficult position. Unless distributors manufacture the medical supplies they sell, they have difficulty offering competitive prices to customers while continuing to make reasonable profit margins. Applying only the cost-plus pricing method forces distributors to absorb the costs associated with holding, managing, and delivering inventory, regardless of the variations in weight, size or handling difficulties among different products. This is in addition to

The key issue for Virgin Mobile USA is to select a pricing strategy that will both attract and retrain subscribers.

For instance, there are generic principles of pricing of desired net income, competitive position, and market structure. According to (Cleverly, Song, & Cleverly, 2011), every business must generate enough revenue through its sales of products and services to sustain its operations and provide for the replacement of its physical assets as well as provide a return to its investors. Partners Healthcare System and among other organizations must recognize levels of pricing, so inadequate pricing doesn’t accumulate to lead to business disaster.

This method of calculating costs could be beneficial or not depending on the organization and its size. In a healthcare setting, any healthcare institution is seen as delivering quality care and therefore most decisions regarding choice of the institution come down to the pricing. In order to compete for patients, the healthcare institution must bring its price down to the absolute margin. This will over time affect the institution badly as it will leave the institution without funds to replace the capital equipment. This can eventually lead to closing down of the financially weaker

Physician operated distributors have become more prevalent in the last ten years. Currently there are five leading companies in the spinal medical device industry. In 2004, 86% of the devices used in spinal surgeries belonged to those five companies, and the remaining 14% belonged to POD’s. In 2014, PODs shares grew to 33% and that number is expected to keep growing. In 2012, 1 in 5 spinal fusion surgeries billed government insurances used devices manufactured by PODs. In the United States there is a minimum of 20 states with confirmed POD’s, but due to a lack of regulation there is no way to know the exact number of POD’s that exist within the United States.

As it relates to the textbook, this describes some of the scope of the hospitals; which refers to the range of activities which the firm performs internally, the breadth of its product and service offerings, the extent of its geographic market and its mix of businesses. But unlike with the electric company, no regulator caps hospital profits. To the extent that author Steven Brill found any consistency among hospital charge-master practices, this is one of them: hospitals routinely seem to charge 2V2 times what expensive implantable devices cost them, which produces that 150% profit margin.

1. Williams-Sonoma has experienced strong growth in the past year, but this is on the back of a strong economy and in particular a strong new home market. The furniture business is strongly correlated with the strength of the real estate market. In this respect, the company's strategy is largely irrelevant, because within the next five years the real estate bubble will burst and Williams-Sonoma will suffer a major downturn in its own results as a consequence. However, this reality shows that the company perhaps lacks sufficient differentiation, and can only be expected to perform roughly in line with the housing market. It is neither outperforming competitors nor is it underperforming. W-S has sufficient differentiation within the furnishings and home products segment, and has a fairly strong brand name in the segment. The company's status as a mass-market premium company allows it to grow strongly in strong economic times, but also makes it particularly vulnerable to economic downturn, because not only do consumers redecorate at greater intervals, but they will trade down to more affordable stores when they do.

Rugged, stylish, comfortable, economic, and most of all, dependable. The Ford F-150 is the pickup truck that changed the nation. From its very beginning, the Ford truck has taken care of its owner’s necessities from hauling hay to visiting family and friends. Since its inception, the Ford Motor Company (FMC) has earned the loyalty of its customers. Most of all, the ford pickup truck has earned the respect of farmers, families, and businessmen alike. How did the FMC earn the loyalty of the people? By creating the highest value possible for its customers. Ford provided the most reliable and economical vehicle in its time.

The major problem that the hospital is facing is the reduction of price by the competitor. Price is one of the common strategies that organizations use to attract many customers. In the case, the Lexington Laser Vision has reduced its prices to what their fellow competitors cannot reduce to, as they would make losses. The hospital needs to think of the best strategies that they can incorporate before they can decide to lower on the prices, as lowering might lead to making losses, especially because the procedure is too expensive.

By early 1988, Augustine Medical executives were actively engaged in finalizing and marketing the program for the patient warming system named Bair Hugger Patient Warming System. The principal question yet to be resolved was how to price this system. Several considerations are required in terms of organizational objectives, demand for the product, customer value perception, buyer price sensitivity, the price of competitive offering, and direct variable costs. The company has two alternatives to price this system, either the skimming pricing strategy or the penetration pricing strategy.

The bundle pricing can benefit the hospital by a shorter bill and fast insurance payments and can solve much of its weakness. New bundle pricing system can also provide simple and reasonable price expectations.

Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, is a level one trauma center that is recognized for clinical excellence in cardiology, neurology, orthopedics, transplants, and treatment for cancer (Henry, 2016). Henry Ford Health Systems has over 23,000 employees, and is the fifth largest employer in the Metro-Detroit area, and is also one of the most diverse health systems (Henry, 2016). As part of a successful marketing strategy, health care organizations use branding to promote their vision, and values. Branding is defined as a marketing strategy of creating a name, symbol, or design that identifies a product (Branding, 2016). Branding is a tool that conveys product benefits to customers in the form of names or symbols to which unique and motivating associations are attached (Sanya, Datta, & Banerjee, 2013). Organizations need to develop effective strategies that have purpose, relate to their audience, and positively represent the values of the organization. Services or products provided by a health care organization should be branded in order to appeal to customers’ needs, as well as their desires (Corbin, Kelley, & Schwartz, 2001). According to the article “Focus on branding to attract healthcare consumers”, an active branding strategy can align physicians and staff with the hospital’s identity, as well as their mission, and make communication consistent (Caramenico, 2012). As one of the leading hospitals in the metro Detroit area, Henry Ford Hospital focuses their branding strategy on

5. The most important understanding about Arkon Children’s Hospital as an organization that led the firm to consider the research about its positioning was The most important understanding about Akron Children's Hospital as an organization that led the firm to consider the research about its positioning was that this hospital was basically about the kids, and that everything about this hospital should emphasize the kids. In addition, there were rival hospitals that were engaging in aggressive marketing campaigns that threatened the economic and financial security of this hospital as a business institution. An increase in the marketing campaigns in these hospitals could reduce the number of patient cases at Akron Children's Hospital. 6. The research design decision can be put into context by The research design can be put into context as qualitative focus group centered research, that also contained elements of quantitative research methodologies, due to the inclusion of statistical subject matter. 7. The main inferences/conclusions in this case are The main conclusions of this case are that the effective positioning of an institution will require a number of planning options, with focus group research being among those options. There must be a concerted effort by all team members to focus on the