MIS712 EBUSINESS STRATEGIES T1, 2017 Assessment 1 – Strategic Analysis (Individual Case Study) Submitted by – PRITHAM KASI Student ID – 214455765 Date – 10/04/2017 Pestle analysis • Political environment: America has allowed the adoption of insurance cover for the citizens. For instance, the Medicaid is used for all American citizens (Dafny et al., 2015). • Economic environment: The economic recession of the United States led to the decrease in purchasing power of the American citizens. • Social environment: The Americans have varied economic classes, like those who are poor and unemployed and those who are employed and rich, who can afford private insurance covers (Ashwood et al., 2017). • Technological environment: The American Well technology has been adopted at homes and workplace with increased internet connectivity. Therefore, multi-media messaging (MMS) can be used for communication between patients and specialists. • Legal environment: The American Well services are linked to HIPAA. So there is enhanced security for communication and transmission of personal health information. Figure 1: health insurance in the United States in 2012. (http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/mph-modules/hpm/americanhealthcare_paying/americanhealthcare_paying_print.html) 5 forces analysis • Potential new entrants: The potential for new entrants is low for short-term and high for the long term basis. For instance, the American Well initially invested $70 million (approx). This clearly indicates that in the long run, it is possible for a new company to enter this market and provide online health care services, provided they are ready to invest either the same or more amount of money, to offer enhanced health online services between the physicians, specialists, and patients (Uscher-Pines et al., 2016). • The power of Suppliers: The power of suppliers is low in the online health services because there are high numbers of competitors in the market. However, the power of suppliers becomes high when it is the niche of the market or when the suppliers are limited. The suppliers are said to be limited if there is only a certain supplier who can supply a given material in a particular area. • The power of buyers: The buyers have low power because they are too many, while the health care service providers are limited. In this case, the buyers fall into two main categories, such as, the insurance companies and the final customer (patients). • Availability of substitutes: There are a high number of substitutes to the online care health services in America. Like, for those who are illiterates, they can opt for offline health services as substitutes. Customers of the American well • Employers: The employers are in dire need of a platform which provides them with an opportunity to serve their clients. In this case, the employers do not prefer situations that cause absenteeism to their employees (Terry, 205). • Doctors: In America, the majority of the health personnel are the PCP, while the specialists are few. While many patients seeking specialized treatment with fewer specialists available, the doctors need a cost-effective way of providing care to most of the patients without having to struggle in excess. Competitors There are several competitors in the United States in terms of online health care systems like Med-fusion, Cisco, Tealdoc telepresence and Rely on health. Patients: The patients in the United States have varied health concerns such as acute, chronic and rehabilitative care. Patients should have their choice of physicians available to meet their needs at all times. Figure 2: Adoption of American Well in the United States. (http://www.mhealthtalk.com/consumers-ready-for-telehealth-survey/) Company The American Well provides an online and telephone platform for the patients to keep in touch with the physicians and specialists. It helps in reducing the time for consultations in offices by creating a link between excess time and service demand (Uscher-Pines et al., 2016). In most cases, the patient gets an opportunity to make a choice upon the type of health care specialists they like to talk to, with respect to their unique health needs. Core competencies • Offers telemedicine • Physician licensing services • Safe and transparent payment systems for services • Catered for liability issues by obtaining a policy from insurers Strategy recommendation The American Well online care company is focused on offering a digital platform in which it lowers the costs of seeking and providing health care to patients and health professionals respectively. Moreover, it generates revenue to the service providers and hence offers an efficient health services delivery system (Terry, 205). These are some of the strategies that need to be marketed to the health insurance companies for an early adoption. The American Well company also needs to form a market share and brand awareness, especially to the competitors so that it can create market dominance. The Team Edition services should be marketed more to the insurance companies and patients because there are no much costs that are incurred and they provide enhanced connectivity between the patients, insurance companies, and healthcare givers. The capitalization on the Team Edition can, therefore, be used as a distinct feature that creates a unique difference between the American Wellness Company and its competitors. There are also plans to extend the online care services to the hospitals and retail clinics as a new business segment so that there will be online care kiosks. This plan will help the Company to spread its services to wide geographical locations, although it will require huge capital in terms of marketing and infrastructure. The segmentation of the pharmacy segments can be carried out by the use of the existing infrastructure and hence would be economically favorable to the Company. The expansion of the American Well services to international markets requires a lot of capital because there is a need to offer solutions for every need of the local markets and structure of the company in terms of service provision. Moreover, international marketing of the American Wellness services is still not advisable for the time being because it has not been fully established even in its own home country. Since there are high level of proposals being made by physicians, insurance companies, and patients, there is a need to lay emphasis on remaining health care needs. Since the American Well services have been tested and adopted by several insurance companies, physicians, and patients, it’s marketing should be stressed more (Dafny et al., 2015). This is because it has proven to be a valuable platform since it offers benefits to the insurance companies and patients in terms of treatment costs and time. With this respect, the American Well services should be focus on market establishment while the Team Edition should be viewed as a value addition. Figure 3: The cost of health care services in American Well (http://www.mhealthtalk.com/consumers-ready-for-telehealth-survey/) References Ashwood, J.S., Mehrotra, A., Cowling, D. and Uscher-Pines, L., 2017. Direct-To-Consumer Telehealth May Increase Access To Care But Does Not Decrease Spending. Health Affairs, 36(3), pp.485-491. Dafny, L., Hendel, I. and Wilson, N., 2015. Narrow networks on the health insurance exchanges: What do they look like and how do they affect pricing? a case study of texas. The American Economic Review, 105(5), pp.110-114. Terry, K., 2015. Physicians and telehealth: Is it time to embrace virtual visits?. Medical Economics. Available at http://medicaleconomics. modernmedicine. com/medical-economics/news/physicians-and-telehealth-it-time-embrace-virtualvisits. Uscher-Pines, L., Fischer, S. and Chari, R., 2016. The Promise of Direct-to-Consumer Telehealth for Disaster Response and Recovery. Prehospital and disaster medicine, 31(04), pp.454-456.