Demand Management in Healthcare Innovation

Introduction

Demand management and marketing in health and social care context is highly important aspect that assists healthcare providers to use innovative products as well as services in terms of improving the overall service delivery process that would not only meet complex and critical health needs of service users but also help the entire healthcare organisation to cope up with the ever-changing demand as well as health needs of service users. This study is going to discuss that how Philips Healthcare can form proper demand management framework by launching non-invasive wearable healthcare product, the optical biometric Sensor and self-management app, the sleep tracking app in terms of assisting NHS organisation to meet increasing health needs of service users. In terms of discussing the overall demand management process by Philips Healthcare this study will discuss how this company can conduct market segmentation for newly launched healthcare products, marketing mix tools and target marketing in terms of improving overall marketing of newly launched wearable device and self-management app to assist NHS professional meeting increasing healthcare demands of service users in entire community. Finally, the study will make the critical assessment of value proportion of products launched and marketed by Philips Healthcare in terms of analysing competitive advantages of optical biometric sensor and the app over the other healthcare products used by NHS organisation.

Task 1: Segmentation approaches for marketing on wearable devices and self-management apps:

Market segmentation is one of the most important marketing tools which assist marketers to divide entre market of potential customers into various segments and groups based on certain characteristics such as demographic, psychographic, geographic and behavioural aspects (Ali et al. 2018). In this context Philips Healthcare is going to launch two important healthcare products such as non-invasive wearable healthcare device, the optical biometric sensor and he self-management application software, Sleep Tracking app for people suffering from sleep apnoea. The optical biometric sensor is a wearable device which is associated with monitoring heart rate, calculating heart beats, track blood volume and the body motion. On the other hand, the app is the self-movement healthcare tool, which will assist patients with sleep apnoea to have great sleep at night by using the night sleep therapy by the sensor devices that is provided to the users who will subscribe the app. For generating useful as well as successful marketing of these two healthcare products to assist NHS healthcare providers in successfully meeting critical and complex health demands in community, the marketers of Philips Healthcare is going to use two of the above-mentioned market segments which are as follows.

Demographic segmentation:

Age:

Targeted age group is 30-65 years

Marketing managers of Philips Healthcare will target mainly middle-age to older people belonging to the age group 30-65 years. As majority of the health issues generally occurs after the age 30, the marketers Philips Healthcare will target this segment to market the products. Additionally, people of above 30 years are highly prevalent to sleeping disorders and sleep apnoea. This is why this company has targeted this age group people which will enhance the overall sells of their two products to meet enhancing health demands in the community.

Gender:

There is no gender specific marketing for these two products by Philips Healthcare. Both the males and females are targeted by this company to sell these two products.

Income:

Philips Healthcare will target people belonging to middle- higher income family. Marketers of this company will set the individual price of these two products, optical biometric sensor and the app in such a manner that assists the middle to higher income people to afford the devices as well as the app easily. Here the marketers will target NHS organisations and hospitals that generally have patients of middle to higher income level, to sell these two products.

Pros of demographic segmentation:

Demographic segmentation will assist marketers of Philips Healthcare to select the target population belonging to such age group and family income that are highly relevant to the criteria based on which Philips Healthcare is going to launch the above-mentioned healthcare device and app. As mentioned by Barbosa et al. (2017), demographic market segmentation assists marketers selecting preferable target segments such as gender, age and income level in terms of marketing and selling their products as well as services in terms of grabbing high market success. This type of segmentation assists marketers to select definite group of population who actually need these product and service that is going to be launched by Philips Healthcare. Therefore, segmentation of the market as well as the target population through using the demographic segmentation is going to be proved as highly useful to the purpose of launching the app and non-invasive sensory devices.

Cons:

Although demographic segmentation can assist the marketers of Philips Healthcare to divide the target population based on age, gender and the family income that enhance the chances of high number of selling as well as marketing of above-mentioned devices and the app, this segmentation does not provide any assistances in determining health condition, psychology and attitude of target population which are also important for deciding what types of marketing strategies need to be taken by the marketers to enhance the selling of product and services

Psychographic segmentation:

The marketers of Philips Healthcare would target the healthcare providers and officials working in NHS organisation who have liberal and modern mentality. As mentioned by Chase (2016), while conducting psychographic segmentation process, the markets of an organisational needs to focus in the psychological aspects of the target population to make effective changes in product and services that will match with the actual psychology of consumers. Philips Healthcare has targeted such NHS health care providers who believe in modem as well as conventional healthcare treatment process with using artificial intelligence and modern clinical technique in terms of improving overall healthcare service to meet ever-increasing demand of services users. This target population can understand importance of sleep tracking app and the Optical Biometric Sensor in health and social care industry to manage demand of service users. Therefore, it can be stated that the psychographic segment selected by the marketers of Philips Healthcare is highly relevant to the product and services it wil launched.

Pros:

As stated by Xiao et al. (2018), psychographic market segmentation is division of target population based on their attitude, psychology and perception that can influence the overall marketing and selling of a definite product and service. In this context Philips Healthcare will target healthcare professionals as well as service users who have highly robust, practical and trendy perception as well as attitude which will assist marketers to convince them to buy the app as well as the wearable device for managing ever-increasing healthcare demand in the society. In addition to this, this segmentation process will assist the marketers of Philips Healthcare to track actual psychology, preferences and interest of target population that make marketers able to conduct useful modification in the healthcare device and self-management app, in terms of meeting the ever increasing healthcare needs in community.

Cons:

Along with the benefits of psychographic segmentation, there are many limitations that are also associated with this segmentation process. Psychology and attitude of people is unpredictable which change with the changing trend in the society. Therefore, marketers of Philips Healthcare can face difficulties in future years in meeting heath demand as well as expectation of society people as their psychology, perception, preferences and interest will change over time.

Task 2: Criteria for targeting decision and marketing mix:

Criteria taken during targeting:

Target marketing is one of the most useful tools in case of launching any new product as well as services which assist marketers of any organisation to break the entire market into different segments and then choose some of the relevant segment on which they want to concentrate their marketing efforts (Bacchetti et al. 2019). Target marketing will assist marketers of Philips Healthcare in terms of selecting few segments after dividing entire market by using above-mentioned segmentation process. After segmenting the entire market by using psychographic and demographic segmentation, marketers of Philips Healthcare select few relevant segments that will assist marketers to grab high level of complete advantages of products over the other produced in the market. Following are segments and criteria that are chosen by the marketers of Philips Healthcare in terms of strengthening the overall marketing for the healthcare products;

Age: service users belonging to the age group 30 -65 years (Middle age to older people)

Gender: both males and females are targeted

Income: middle to higher income people

Psychology: service providers as well as NHS professionals with liberal, modern and openminded attitude who believe in modern as well as conventional clinical and treatment process

The above-mentioned segment or criteria selected by the marketers of Philips Healthcare is highly relevant to the purpose based on which Philips Healthcare is going to launch the self-management app and sensory devices. Here the selected age group is justified with marketing purpose of product, majority of the health issues including heart stroke, heart related disorders and sleeping disorders occurs in people belonging to this age group. On the other hand, both the males and females are selected by the marketers of Philips Healthcare while conducting the target marketing due to the fact that, both women and men are affected by different chronic as well as critical health issues which enhance the health care demand day-by-day in society. On the other hand, liberal and modern minded people will better accept the new technical devices and healthcare app to have proper healthcare benefits. Therefore, it can be stated that the criteria selected by Philips Healthcare during target marketing are highly relevant with the purpose based on which the entire marketing has been conducted.

Marketing mix:

As mentioned by Zhang (2018), marketing mix can be defined as the business proves that contains different sets of marketing tools that assist marketers to pursue their business objectives. Sets of different marketing tools are price, product, promotion and place. Here, the marketers of Philips Healthcare is going to use 4P Marketing Mix in terms of analysing the overall changes as well as modification that are needed to be done with the product to assist NHS organisations to meet health demand in society.

Price:

Marketers need to set justified as well as reasonable prices for each product which will assist them to convince target population to buy these products. Based on the income level of target population selected by marketers of Philips Healthcare, the marketers are going to use two types of pricing strategy such as skimming price and competitive price.

Skimming price:

In this type of pricing strategy, marketers of Philips Healthcare will first set the prices based on income level and affordability of target population and then when other companies launch the substitute healthcare products in market, the marketers will reduce the market price of products in terms of managing the situation to enhance their product demand.

Competitive pricing:

In this type of pricing strategy marketers of Philips Healthcare will select the reasonable and justified market price of non-invasive device and sleep tracking app in such a manner that would provide opportunities to NHS organisations as well as service uses in society to get these two products at a price lower than the similar healthcare products marketed by other companies.

Product:

Philips Healthcare marketers is going to invest a large amount of money in research and development process which will assist the manufacturer to enhance quality, uniqueness and durability of the Biometric Optical Sensor. In addition to this, the marketers also believe in conducting consistent modification in the Sleep Tracking software which will enhance the robustness and usability of this application program that assure NHS organisations to use these devices to improve their service delivery process to meet rising healthcare demands.

Place: Philips Healthcare is going to sell the wearable non-invasive devices and the software application programme to NGS organisations and the service users in suffering from critical health issues as well as sleep apnoea. In this context, the marketers will make strong network connection that will assist them to make direct communication as well as official interaction with the higher officials of the NHS organisation. On the other hand,, marketers will also connect with service users through official websites and emails in terms of informing about the pricing offers of these healthcare device and the app.

Promotion:

Philips Healthcare will make online promotion of the healthcare products as well as of application software through using social media and official website which will assist the marketers to highlight the uniqueness of products as well as service in front of NHS professionals and service users across the UK.

Task 3: Complexity in care system and how product of Philips Healthcare can assist NHS organisational to meet demand:

Bart Health NHS Trust is the NHS hospital in London, which recently faces some financial issues in meting healthcare needs of patients admitted in this hospital. In terms of meeting ever-increasing critical and complex needs of patients suffering from chronic illness, there is no proper infrastructure, clinical technique and medical instrument. Therefore, the NHS professionals working in this organisation is unable to meet the demand of patients. In this context, by selling Biometric Optical Sensor and the Sleep tacking App, marketers of Philips Healthcare can assist NHS professionals to improve overall healthcare service system. The biometric device will assist NHS professionals to keep tracking of blood volume, heart rate and heart beats of patient in any time. Even, through using this device, health professionals do not need to be present in front of patients rather they can connect to the device through Bluetooth device offered by Philips Healthcare, which will assist health professionals to get all updates of blood volume and current heart beats of patients. On the other hand, sleep tracking app will assist patients with sleep apnoea to make self-management of their sleeping pattern that will not only them to have great sleep at night that is important for their health and wellbeing but also improve their psychological wellbeing through making systematic sleeping pattern.

Task 4: critical assessment of value proportion and competitive advantages of product of Philips Healthcare and development of proper demand management plan:

As mentioned by De Gruyter et al. (2018), value proposition and competitive advantage are strongly connected with each other in which a company that can enhance competitive advantages of its products and service by conducting highly relevant and useful value proposition process. Philips Healthcare marketers will take effective value proportion strategies in terms of grabbing attention of NHS service delivery manager on the uniqueness and usefulness of the healthcare non-invasive device and the self-management application programmes. For convincing NHS mangers to invest on these healthcare products of Philips Healthcare, marketers need to enhance the value of their products by conducting consistent modification as well as standardisation of products. As argued by Yang et al. (2016), sometimes in value proportion process, only standardisation and modification can interfere with the originality and actual purpose of products which can reduce customers’ interest on these products and services. If it is analysed based on the psychology of a NHS manager, it can be stated that, marketers of Philips Healthcare need to focus on improving the experiences of customers while using the wearable healthcare devices as well as the app. In this context, marketers need to conduct consistent n research and development on value proportion process which will assist them to take effective strategies to enhance value and usefulness of products. In this context Vile et al. (2017) argued that, marketers need to focus in the tracking current market tend as well as psychology and preference of the target customers by customising and standardising the product to enhance their value. Here the marketers need to focus on changing healthcare demands of service users from NHS professionals which will assist the marketers to make relevant changes in their products which will enhance the demand for these products in market in such a manner that will compel NHS manager to choose these products over the other similar products offered by other companies. In this context Bharadwaj (2018) argued that, in term of creating great value proportion of products only standardisation and research in overall market trend is not sufficient for convincing customers, rathe marketers of need to focus on pricing strategies to set the justified prices for grabbing strong customer attention. From recent studies it is seen that, NHS professions and organisations face huge economic scarcity in providing the healthcare facilities that are actually needed for meeting the critical and complex healthcare needs of service users. Therefore, for convincing NHS manager to invest in healthcare products from Philips Healthcare, marketers of Philips Healthcare need to set such pricing strategy that will offer the NHS organisations highly relevant price for the healthcare products that are going to be launched by Philips Healthcare. In addition to this, Philips Healthcare needs to market the uniqueness and usefulness of the wearable and the application program which will assist the NHS manager to identify usefulness and uniqueness these offer by Philips Healthcare over the other similar product marketed by other brands.

Conclusion:

From the overall discussion it can be concluded that, for managing demand of customer , marketers need to set proper marketing strategies such as marketing mix, target marketing and market segmentation. Through using these marketing tools, marketers can conduct proper product and service development in terms of increasing value of each product which will assist organisation to grab strong customer attention. Through creating proper value proposition, marketers of an organisation can easily convince target customer to choose the product of this company over the similar products marketed by other companies.

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