Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

No.

Here's why:

Let's see YOU coming up with your own questions.

Let's see you EARNING your MBA.

Let's see you showing PROSPECTIVE EMPLOYERS that you have a brain, that you can think, and that you're actually worth hiring.

The fact that you've got as far as writing your final thesis but that you appear to have failed to learn a few basic points about marketing (such as the value of doing some work) is a tad alarming.

The fact that you've been studying health care is doubly alarming. I'm telling you this for your own good because it seems your tutors have dropped the ball.

Can you locate the cancer hospital anywhere you want to, or is it in a fixed/predetermined location?

If you have the option, why not locate the hospital near where the patients are, rather than adding the element of international travel just to get to the hospital?

I don't understand the basis for interest in this particular product. WHY does it have to be an international marketing plan? Why not just be the best cancer hospital in the local market and serve the patients nearby? If you have some particular expertise, perhaps you can license it to hospitals around the world -- rather than require that patients come to a far-away, unfamiliar location. If not, then why would anyone want to travel overseas to get a service they can get nearer to their home?

I think you may be starting with a flawed premise ... which is why it will be difficult to come up with a marketing plan that makes any sense.

If you already know where the patients are coming from and going to, then those patients are the ones you should be asking.

How and why did they decide to go where they went? What other countries might they have considered? How satisfied are they with the result of their decision? What would make this decision easier? How did they learn about the option to get treatment overseas? Etc.

You may find that people from different places have different reactions and behavior patterns.

Once you have these unaided responses you can ask specifically about XYZ as a destination for cancer treatment. You can even get them to react to various concept statements to see which positioning promises get their attention (and which don't).

Then you can go to a cancer hospital in their home country/region and ask similar questions to patients there. See if you can identify the attitudes and values that best predict who will: (a) consider overseas treatment, (b) have positive reactions to XYZ as a destination, and (c) respond best to your concept statements. What differentiates the positive responders from the not-so-positive responders?