Brand Telemedicine Technology Solutions †Free Samples to Students

Question: Discuss about the Brand Telemedicine Technology Solutions. Answer: Introduction The online business entities need to formulate suitable strategies so that they can survive in the increasing competitive environment (Weill and Vitale 2013). The advent of the web development technologies and the internet has made e-businesses one of the most sought after business forms (Weill and Vitale 2013). E-business is considered as a latest domain in the business and it has become imperative on the firms to develop suitable technology drive platform that would improve the sales of the company (Wikstrm and Ellonen 2012). These kinds of strategies are governed by collective information dissemination. The e-business gives an opportunity to do business in the global marketplace and gather more number of clients. This report would focus on the American Well: Telehealth organization that has its headquarters in Boston (Well 2017). The company offers medical services to the global patients over secure video. The company provides immediate web care visits to different patients situated in over 46 years (Well 2017). The earlier assignment discussed the different kinds of analytical tools used by the organization in the evaluation of the internal as well as external environment through the use of different tools. The current business strategy of the firm was discussed in detail. This current assignment would focus on the analysis of the current business strategy of the company and strive to give suitable recommendations for improving the current strategy. An action plan would be provided for achieving the recommendations within a six-month period. Current Strategy Assessment The current strategy of American Well should be evaluated based on the earlier assignment and the current positioning of the company would be done in this section. The company engages itself in providing the best quality services to the patients that would help them to get competitive advantage (Well 2017). They are engaged in the process of identifying the needs of the customers and having knowledge about the type of medical services needed by the US population. There is an increased ageing population and changes in the eating habits of the people, due to which more number of people are availing the geriatric services as well as obesity services (Well 2017). The company places high emphasis on the technological advancements due to the fact that it operates in a technological framework. A per the opinions of Hill Jones and Schilling (2014), the Generic Competitive Strategies theory given by Porter discusses about the four generic strategies used by the companies to gain competitive advantage. These four strategies include differentiation focus, cost leadership, differentiation leadership and cost focus. It is important for the companies to select one of the four strategies so that the company is ahead of the competitors. According to the above strategy, it can be inferred that American Well does not use competitive advantage strategy. There are no defined cost leadership tactics nor there any product differentiation. The online health services are provided by other companies as well and hence it can be concluded that the company does not use differentiation focus. The current strategies of the firm should be evaluated by setting some pre-determined standards so that they formulate effective business strategies. The companies should undertake growth strategies that would help them to survive in the market for longer duration. It would also enable them to keep up with the competitors and prevent the company from losing loyal customers (Christensen and Raynor 2013). American Well does not have differentiation strategies as they are providing same services as provided by the competitors. They are also not using the cost focus strategy in order to provide the best affordable services to the patients (Christensen and Raynor 2013). This makes their loyal customers to switch brands and avail the services of the competitors. The company also lacks growth strategies and provides the same services over years. As opined by Johnston and Bate (2013), an organization should use growth strategies that include introduction of new services or revamping the old ones. American Well offers software, access to the clinical services and other health care related services to the patients for a variety of clients including the employers, health plan or delivery network (Christensen and Raynor 2013). It has been predicted that the telehealth in US and global telehealth would be having massive growth in the next10 years (Malvey and Slovensky 2014). This means that the companies need to use more innovative measures to cater to the increasing market. However, American Well is not giving sufficient attention towards the implementation of the growth strategies. According to the views of Kajanus et al. (2012), the SWOT analysis deals with the matching of the particular competencies of the firm with the external environment. The internal competencies of a firm comprise of the strengths as well as weakness. The external competencies of a firm include the opportunities as well as threats (Malvey and Slovensky 2014). The strengths of the company include that it has advantage over the US market as it can introduce improved services in the market (Lee and Harada 2012). The demand supply gap of the physicians as well as specialists is utilized well by the company. It is proprietary software that gives an intellectual property rights to the patients. The weakness of the firm includes that it is not a brand name and is not instantly recognized by the patients (Lee and Harada 2012). The opportunities of the company include that it has enormous opportunities in the online communication between the patients and doctors (Weiner 2012). There is tremendous potential in the international markets. The threats of the company include that the business opportunities should have right strategies otherwise the competitors would capture the market. New Strategies America Well should implement strategies according to the loopholes identified in the above section. The company should use innovative services which would help them to provide unique services as compared to their competitors. The company should strive to create competitive advantage strategy to gain as well as retain more number of customers (Thompson et al. 2013). It is important that the firm should use more number of cost leadership strategies which help the company to give quality online health services to the patients at an affordable price as compared to the competitors (Anhang Price et al. 2014). This should be done by reducing the prices of the acquisition of the doctors as well as paramedics at much lower costs than usual. This can also be done by finding efficient methods of service delivery than the competitors (Thompson et al. 2013). It can also use price strategies to combat the services of the competitors. The company should also use differentiation strategy for making their services unique from their competitors (Anhang Price et al. 2014). This kind of strategy should be based entirely on the mechanism of low price. The company should perform extensive market research to determine the cost of services of the competitors (McQuarrie 2015). On the other hand, it can also engage in the process of creating defensive strategies for gaining business prospects. This process involves the company distancing itself from its competitors by the creation of competitive advantage. American Well should formulate effective growth strategies for sustainable business operations. The company should aim for creating value proposition for long term growth (Michelini and Fiorentino 2012). The company should aim for understanding the customer segments and the attributes that are credible to the business. It should use innovative offers such as free doctors consultation or avail one doctor consultation and get 20% off on the next visit (Nufer 2013). It should aim to attract the customers by giving them innovative benefits, which would be beneficial to them in the long run (Thompson et al. 2013). The ideal customer segment should be identified and this should be done by understanding the issues of a particular market segment (Babin and Zikmund 2015). It is also important to create different kinds of key indicators. It is important to invest heavily on talent and bring employees who give stick to the organization (Zenoff 2012). The organization needs experienced candidate s which would give them the potential to perform better. The company should try to build more brand awareness so that it is able to penetrate the masses in a short duration. It should aim at improving their brand reputation, which would help in increasing the sales of the company. The company should strive to create more brand awareness in the social network platforms, which is increasingly popular among the masses (Tsimonis and Dimitriadis 2014). It is also important to improve the traditional methods of advertising. It is also vital to create attention creating advertisements that help in the better positioning of the company within the minds of the customers. The company should also engage in the sponsoring of the public events, which are directly related with the services to the community (Smith 2014). It should engage in the public health awareness, free dental checkup, free eye checkup and others, which would help in the creation of good interpersonal relationships with the customers (Tsimonis and Dimitriadis 2014). It can also engag e them with the local charity events, which would help them, network with the business leaders in order to gain good business prospects (Jones 2014). It should try to use marketing pull techniques so that the company is able to provide high quality awareness and low cost awareness technique. It is important to create roadmap for strategy implementation of the e-business strategy. The roadmap of strategy implementation is done after considering all the business entities- Vision- The vision of the organization is to increase their present as well as future customers. American Well should also aim for greater differentiation, greater growth strategies and the creation of good brand names. Objective- The objective of the firm is to incorporate unique features in the services so that they can stay ahead of the competitive advantage. It also aims for the creation of extensive promotion strategies incorporate unique features that would enhance the brand image. Value creation- The company strives for creating brand reputation improvement by giving value added services to the patients. The company aims to achieve this by giving premium quality services to the patients. Target Segment- The primary target segments of American Well are the senior citizens between 50 and 75 years of age, who are suffering from heart diseases or others. The secondary target market would be young married couples/ New weds who may require gynecological services. Ethical and privacy- There should be increased emphasis on the data security issues as this may cause loss of confidential data of the company. It is important that the company strives for growth in an ethical manner (Menzel 2012). External partners- The E-business strategy should be implemented by the senior managers within the organization. This should be independently without depending upon many external entities. Organizational models- The resource allocation, lines of authority and there should be transparent communication that should be implemented by the organization. Revenues and cost model- There are various sources of revenue generation such as investors, sponsored emails, advertisements, and other means which needs to be undertaken by the employees. There should be different cost effective ways of procuring doctors as well as paramedics which would give competitive advantages to the organization. Strategy alignment- American Well should engage itself in proper communication of the new strategy, which would help the employees to be knowledgeable about the new strategy and how to implement the same. Recommendations The company should engage in the formulation of proper course of action, which would help it to achieve the business objectives. This would also help them to achieve the objectives of the new strategy. An action plan is prepared for 6 month duration- Month Month 1 Month 2 Month 3 Month 4 Month 5 Month 6 STRATEGY ACTIVITIES Create low cost services Perform extensive market research Provide competitive online services Give attractive offers to customer Free doctors consultation/Eye check up Identification of market niche Targeting market niches Recruit efficient employees Employee engagement activities Build more brand awareness Engage in digital marketing Engage in traditional marketing Sponsor of public events Evaluation of strategy In the first month, the company should strive to create low cost services after studying the services as well as costs of the competitors. It should try to perform extensive market research about the existing services of the company. In the second month, the extensive market research would be continued so that the unique services of the competitors can be identified. The company should try to provide competitive online services so that there is more number of customers. It should give attractive offers to the clients so that they can avail more services. The free doctors consultation or free eye checkup or free dental camp should be provided to the customers. In this third month, identification of the market niche should be done so that there are efficient marketing tactics. This would also make it possible to promote marketing tactics suitable for the particular market niches. The company should aim the marketing campaigns according to the target market. In this month, the company should also recruit competent manpower who would make it possible for the organization to achieve their business strategy. In the fourth month, American Well continues to target the desired markets and should engage in employee engagement activities so that the employee is motivated to give their best performance. This would make the brand to perform better and there would be sufficient brand awareness. The brand should engage in digital marketing and should make use of the social medial websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler and others. In the fifth month, the company should engage in traditional marketing tools in order to increase the visibility as well as convert the brand into a popular one. It should also engage in sponsoring of public events as well as charities, which would help the brand to gain new customers. The sixth month would comprise of the different kinds of evaluation measures that utilize the outcomes of the strategies to match with the objectives of the business strategies. Several modes of data collection and data analysis tools would be used for this purpose. Conclusion The e-business strategy improvement is one of the most important success determinant of the modern-day organizations. This report strived to analyze the current strategy of American Well. 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