Since healthcare service is on the top priority of each state, US government would likely protect the industry from cost-focused but low-quality entrants. Patents, although not necessarily seen in trademarks, are present through recognition of US citizens to the compatibility and convenience in dealing with their own hospitals. Assent specificity, as mentioned above, is one of the core features of the industry which can serve as barrier for new entrants.
As the market is already saturated, new entrants must not only surpass the knowledge and experience gained by current players in the medical equipment sector but also the necessary investment, marketing and technical know-how of software technologies. The complementary relationship of equipments and software may be very difficult for new entrants in terms of investing in plants, distribution channels and after-sales services due to lack of learning curve unlike current players like GEMS. Recommendations
The only adverse aspect of the medical systems industry is the high intensity of rivalry but all other aspects are very attractive since they intends to protect the current market share and power of US players such as GEMS. Strategies necessary to mitigate the negative impact of high rivalry can be understood by looking on Appendix 1. S-O strategy is obvious on the customer-supplier strategic relationship and the loyalty/ trust embedded in GEMS-TIP program and focus on high performance customers. Being the key aspect of software technologies, the quality of application education of GEMS-TIP can benefit from the recent trend.
W-O strategy can be applied as when guarantee and trial programs are seemingly very expensive because training can offset marketing costs. S-T strategy can be used such as the proprietary in satellite TV program to reduce the threat of high face-to-face training. W-T strategy is eminent when hospitals do not have enough funds in private training through selecting voluntary organizations as alternative. Conclusions GEMS must continue its unique training program and exploit its proprietary in satellite TV programs.
With this, it can make its products and services more valuable to customers where loyalty and trust is not hard to develop, maintain and keep. Global expansion may also be tapped in the course of exploiting its NBC resources which can transfer training modules to different parts of the world. In this expansion program, caution must be applied in selecting target countries such as selecting affluent countries or those comparable to economic, political and cultural structures to US in particular and Western countries in general.
GEMS must expand because US market is currently saturated, and even there are some parts of market base that are yet untapped, expansion can bring additional merit to exploiting internal resources and capabilities.
References
SWOT and Porter’s Five Forces (2006). Quick MBA. Available from <http://www. quickmba. com/strategy/swot/> and <http://www. quickmba. com/strategy/porter. shtml> [Accessed 6 October 2007] GE Healthcare Products (2007). GE Website. Available from <http://www. ge. com/products_services/healthcare. html> [Accessed 5 October 2007] Note: Obviously, the case study is also part of the reference list. Please include the details.