Executive Summary
Mid-Atlantic Nursing Center (MANC) is a large and one of the best healthcare facilities based in the Mid-Atlantic region offering sophisticated services for assisted living and nursing homes. The company achieved excellent coverage in location, situated in Virginia – Washington D.C. – Maryland Metro area. MANC has a stable workforce and hiring techniques to find the most suitable individuals to work in the organization and have a low workforce turnover rate. The medical company has solid financial results that allow it to expand further. However, the new expansion step is not determined yet.
Mr. James Nguyen approached Mary Anh Lewis, the company’s CEO, to discuss the possibility of making an endowment in his mother’s memory. Mrs. Nguyen received a comprehensive healthcare service from Mid-Atlantic Nursing Center at home, and his son was delighted with the level of healthcare approach. Therefore, James Nguyen suggested Mary Anh put the endowment into opening a facility to care for elderly people of the Vietnamese nation who have specific needs.
While considering the option, Mary Anh summarizes the information and finds that the Virginia – Washington D.C. – Maryland Metro region has the fifth-largest Vietnamese population of American metropolitan areas. At the same time, there are no nursing homes in the area around the MANC facility that would serve the unique needs of the Vietnamese population, who usually do not speak English and prefer in-home assisted healthcare for older adults. Nevertheless, young adults believe that taking parents to a nursing home is a good option. Thus, the main goal for Mary Anh now is to decide whether to accept the offering of Mr. James Nguyen and choose to serve a niche market full of potential and possible risks that should be comprehensively evaluated and addressed.
External Environmental Analysis
It is essential to start analyzing the situation from the internal and external issues that MANC may come across during the implementation process and the entering of the new market. The inner and outside environment and competencies can be analyzed by applying the SWOT model.
Strengths of the Mid-Atlantic Nursing Center (MANC) are the following:
- there are no strong competitors in the area who serve the Vietnamese population in assisted living services;
- the knowledge that experienced medical organizations have helps them to build trustful relationships with potential patients;
- the general demand for in-home medical services is growing among the population and ensures the growth (Majumder et al., 2017);
- MANC has essential goodwill and external reputation with opportunities to attract endowment options, such as from Mr. Nguyen.
The weaknesses are the following:
- MANC has no experience in providing individualized medical care;
- the expansion requires the high personnel costs for adjustment to specific Vietnamese culture;
- the efforts in establishing a hierarchical structure for internal processes require significant time resources;
- never entering the niche market demands the tailor-made approach and capabilities, as suggested (Deloitte, 2019).
Opportunities for the MANC:
- entering the niche market in personalized care that might be potentially profitable;
- capturing the new customers with the potential to scale operations across other nations/regions;
- serving Vietnamese people with unique needs and get experience adjusting the services and procedures to be more flexible;
- help to bridge the gap in healthcare services for Vietnamese elderly people and provide them with a suitable and reliable environment, speaking their language.
Threats are the following:
- the law on offering services to a specific group might not be established/ unregulated sphere;
- the demand for customized in-home services might be low and not profitable;
- the cultural differences might bring resistance to use assisted living services for Vietnamese older people;
- the implementation of personalized services would not fit the existing operations of the MANC.
All these peculiarities should be addressed to ensure that the strategic plan created is effective and successful.
Internal Environmental Analysis
The internal environmental analysis is needed to help Mary Anh create a strategic plan. One can state that MANC is a professional organization providing nursing homes and medical care services to clients at home and employs competent specialists with relevant technical knowledge and skills, which also fit tightly with the organization’s culture and structure. One of the strengths is a stable pool of employees with low turnover levels and unique knowledge of the organization in hiring the best suitable employees. The medical facility has excellent and sound financial performance and can attract capable and visionary leaders, such as Mary Ann Lewis, who is the CEO of the organization and has a good reputation for its outstanding care services valued by patients.
However, some weaknesses should be considered when planning the steps for the expansion. MANC has no experience in providing individualized medical care and does not have an in-depth knowledge of the culture, lifestyle, education, and socio-economic status of Vietnamese families. Moreover, the organization does not have employees who possess the ability of the Vietnamese language and the community environment that is required. Based on the preliminary research and analysis, the opportunity to implement the customized care for a specific population is promising, and the Mid-Atlantic Nursing Center’s management should take this option.
References
Deloitte. (2019). Global health care outlook. Shaping the future. Web.
Hemerling, J., Bhalla, V., Dosik, D., & Hurder, S. (2016). Building capabilities for transformation that lasts. Boston Consulting Group. Web.
Majumder, S., Aghayi, E., Noferesti, M., Memarzadeh-Tehran, H., Mondal, T., Pang, Z., & Deen, M. J. (2017). Smart homes for elderly healthcare-recent advances and research challenges. Sensors, 17(11), 2496. Web.