I. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Longevity Healthcare Systems, Inc is an institution that provides services such as basic (nursing home) health care, rehabilitation therapy, Alzheimer’s care, institutional pharmacy services, sub-acute care and home health care. Longevity has four health care areas; Nursing Care, Subacute care, Rehabilitation services and Institutional pharmacy. The business emerged when Kathryn Hamilton, in 1972, was searching for a nursing home for her mother. Kathryn together with her husband leased a small, outdated 40-bed hospital in a nearby suburb and converted it into along term care facility. By 1979, Longevity was incorporated and Kathryn became the President. For the past years, they've built and acquire nursing
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• Increasing market for long-term health care
• The institutional pharmacy in the markets served by Longevity has no dominant competitor
-Competitive advantage: fast, customer-oriented service, price, and the ability to provide consulting and information management services to customers.
• Favorable demographic trends
-Growth in the elderly segment of the population will increased the demand for health care and the services of nursing homes.
• Increasing demand for Longevity’s subacute care - Due to the growing recognition that treating patients requiring subacute care in low overhead nursing facilities was a cost effective alternative
• Opportunities to expand existing businesses - The acquisition of a pharmacy (since to date, pharmacy had been very profitable. It is also due to the demand for specialized nursing and medical care expansion.)
• Alzheimer’s disease was
Current numbers show substantial growth from the eighties, and estimates suggest that the demand for long term care among the elderly will more than double in the next thirty years. (Feder, Komisar, and Niefeld) This growth will exacerbate concerns about balancing institutional and noninstitutional care, assuring quality of care, and most importantly adopting and sustaining financing mechanisms that equitably and adequately protect the elderly who need long-term care.
2.Competitive Advantage – It includes the best product of an Organization in the competitive market.
see if you can identify additional capabilities and core competencies. Do you think the core competencies mentioned in the case and/or the ones you found are valuable, rare, difficult to imitate, and nonsubstitutable and as such, are also competitive advantages? Why or why not?
Unfortunately, in recent years the cost of providing these traditional services has grown to a point that the programs set in place to care for seniors and chronically ill patients has undergone numerous cuts. This calls into question are the standards of care that nursing facilities provide being cut to compensate for these changes in the rate paid.
Due to the rapid rise of health care, our country has great concern. Our annual growth
It is widely believed that the aging of the U.S. population is a major driver of the annual growth in the demand for health care and in national health spending
The cost of healthcare is on the rise and the demand for services has increased of required and
Increasing demand for cost-effective housing, meals, transport and recreation for the elderly which may need to be subsidized by the state through taxes.
Sunrise Senior Living Inc. is one of the top firms in the rapidly growing long-term care industry. They provided a number of services for senior citizens including assisted living, meals, transportation, housekeeping, and licensed and highly skilled nurses for certain residents who require 24 hour care. The company was started in 1981 in Fairfax, Virginia by married couple Paul and Terry Klaassen who had a vision of creating alternative senior living options that emphasize quality of life. They have started what is now the most recognized company in the industry boasting innovative products and services
Another competitive advantage is the excellent customer service as well as the willingness to provide customers with any products they request. Besides, the engagement to support the communities which are served by the store, helped to gain a loyal customer base.
1. What is competitive advantage, and how does it relate to a company’s business model?
Competitive advantage(CA) is an advantage competitors gain by providing or offering customers or consumers greater value for their money through product and service differentiation or through lower prices. Maintaining competitive advantage is crucial to many businesses or organizations' success in order to survive in the market. Competitive advantage is characterized by superior performance which could be an attribute to outperform the competitors whether current or potential; or gaining a higher market share in a particular industry thereby ensuring market leadership; or ultimately, maximization of profit.(JOBBER 2010)
The increase in life expectancy is partially to blame for the increase in elderly citizens, as there are now better medicines and medical procedures to cure ailments which could have easily killed a person 10 or 20 years ago. As Levine said, "There are more elderly and a larger proportion of elderly in the population now than ever before in the history of the world, and individuals live longer and have a longer span of healthy, vigorous life than ever before" . We have to prepare, not only to have more aged people in the work force, but also to have adequate pensions and supplements to aid these people when they do retire.
In terms of strengths, the company has the advantage of being the market leader, although
Competitive advantage is explained by Mahoney and Pandian (1992) as the function of industry analysis, organizational governance and the firm’s effects in the form of resource advantages and strategies. In order for a firm to be competitive it must adapt to the volatile business environment and through strategic management decisions establish a competitive advantage that will ultimately produce superior performance relative to its competitors (Akimova 2000).