Market Opportunities For Battery Less Hearing Aid example essay topic

10-Year Marketing Plan Battery-Less Hearing Aid Executive Summary Hard of Hearing patients need something that will suit there financial goals in the long run, be less of a hassle to worry about and enhance their hearing all at the same time. We propose in creating a Battery-Less-Hearing Aid and believe that it is the best option to go because Hard of Hearing patients will never have to worry about recharging batteries or buying new ones all the time like you do with our current hearing aids that are available in today's society. On top of that our patients would save money at the same time by never having to buy batteries and will still able to hear just like they would with a hearing aid that is battery operated. Through numerous analysis and meeting with prospective customers we have concluded that having a Battery-Less-Hearing Aid is correct direction to head. We have developed these hearing aids to work by means of a heat sensor. When the aid touches your skin behind your ear the sensor in the hearing aid detects the heat and automatically turns on allowing you to hear.

We have continued to run tests and do analysis to further optimize the components of our Battery-Less-Hearing Aid. Once we had a prototyped device, we tested its performance in terms of our general and implementation specifications and compared the results to the existing battery powered hearing aids and found and concluded that they both allow you to hear at the same level, only the Battery-Less-Hearing Aid never quits on you unless you take it off, unlike the battery powered hearing aids that die on you after continuous use. We also ran a study of 100 Hard of Hearing patients that wore the battery operated hearing aid and had them try our Battery-Less-Hearing Aid and found out that 98 of the 100 patients said that they would prefer the Battery-Less-Hearing Aid over the battery operated hearing aid. The two that stated that they would stick with the battery operated hearing aid said the only reason is that they did not like change and already trusted what they were using. Our Company will be extremely successful due to the fact that we are concentrated on creating a product that will met our customers needs, wants, and demands.

The fact that our prospective consumers do not have to continuously buy new batteries or recharge them is very appealing, not to mention that they will save thousands of dollars in the long run by choosing to wear the Battery-Less-Hearing Aid. We have the right personal in our company that will take this product to the next level and continue to make our Battery-Less-Hearing Aid more advanced and appealing to patients that are already Hard of Hearing and future Hard of Hearing patients. With the rate of people that are Hard of Hearing only increasing each year, our profit is only going to soar upwards as long as we dedicate ourselves to making quality Battery-Less Hearing Aid for our patients. We project that our profit will double each year as we start to establish ourselves as premiere company. With this being said the growth of our company will gradually grow. As of right now we will start off with one company that will be based out of Kansas City, Missouri and as we start to become nationally recognized as a company, we then hope to have at least one of our companies in each city of each state.

If we are able to achieve this goal we will be able to meet the demand of each Hard of Hearing patients better, and will allow us to try to reach our ultimate goal, which will to be able to take our product and sell it nationally all over the world. If this goal is reached, which our company believes can be done, then we will be able to just concentrate on upgrading our Batter-Less-Hearing Aid device and meting our consumers expectations in the future. Overview In these next several paragraphs I will outline each and every detail that you need to know about our company, how we plan to go about it, how it works, who it affects, goals, situation analysis, the costs, competitors, our targets, and any other information that is deemed relevant to our company. Strategic Focus and Plan This section will cover three aspects of corporate strategy that influence the marketing plan, and they are: (1) the mission / vision, (2) goals, (3) core competence / sustainable competitive advantage of Battery-Less-Hearing Aid Mission / Vision This business plan is being proposed to target an external audience. Our business objectives are mainly to provide another successful device / aid for hard-of-hearing people while cutting the total cost down for them being able to hear and function in our society.

We strongly believe that with this new cutting edge technology all of our customers will reap from this device both financially and hearing wise. We foresee that this new device will replace battery operated hearing aids in the near future, just like thousands of other advances in our society has replaced certain things. We know that there are thousands of people who are apt to not like changes, so we will have to convince them and we strongly believe that once we get them to use our device and see how great and cost efficient our device is they will decide what is best for them and that will be the our new technology, the Battery-Less Hearing Aid. Goals For these next 10 years Battery-Less Hearing Aid will seek to achieve each of these following goals: . Non-financial Goals 1. To establish itself as a trusted and consumer friendly business.

2. To have at least one business in every city of each state. 3. To have at least 99% of all hard-of hearing people using the battery-less hearing aid device. 4.

To update and make changes to our hearing device at least every two years to ensure that we provide the best quality hearing device to our consumers and keep them satisfied. 5. To establish connection world-wide and make the battery-less hearing aid available all around the world... Financial Goals 1. To double our profit each year for the next 10 years and then minimize our losses to keep the business running for the remaining years that we are still in business. 2.

To have a public stock offering by the year of 2006.3. To sell our product at a high rate and low cost to maximize our profits. Core Competency and Sustainable Competitive Advantage In terms of core competency, Battery-Less Hearing Aid will achieve a unique ability (1) to provide high-quality cutting edge hearing devices that will suit to the taste of our consumers and provide them with a new feel of hearing in our society and (2) to be able to deliver our product adequately to the consumer on their demand to keep them satisfied and maintain a friendly relationship with our consumers to further attract other consumers to use our device because of our quality, friendliness, promptness and furthermore keep our image and standers at a high quality. In order to translate these core competencies into sustainable competitive advantages our company will work very closely with distributors and other key suppliers in order to build the type of relationship and alliances deemed to satisfy the standards and expectations of our consumers.

Situation Analysis The figure on the next page shows the internal and external factors that affect the market opportunities for Battery-Less Hearing Aid. This SWOT analysis is just a preview of what our company believes will be our strengths and weakness over the course of the first couple of years. Detailed Internal Factor and External Factor Strengths Our company has a great upside as we have more strengths than weakness and all of our strengths should be able to overcome our weakness. On the Internal factor of strengths, in the management we are all quite young, however we all have a knowledgeable background in our respective fields.

The offerings of our product are great as it is very low costing for such a great high-quality hearing device. The marketing will improve as the years go on as we will be able to have distribution of our product world-wide. Our personal is one-of-a-kind as they all have the drive and desire to take our company to the next level and having a small group of people allows us to develop our own family. The finance aspect will thrive as more consumers hear about our product which will drive our demand up and therefore drive our sales and profit up. Our manufacturing does nothing but always ensure that our consumers will receive the highest quality Battery-Less Hearing Aid device and our R&D continuously makes sure that our product is delivered into the hands of our consumers. Moving on to our External factor strengths the consumer / social aspect will always be stable or on the rise because being able to hear will always be a need in our society.

The competitive fact is that our product is newer and more advanced than the regular hearing aids that are battery operated. Our technological is always going to be updated and with a state-of-the-art device like ours it will be hard for others to outdo us. Economic wise the national income is high and our price is relatively low so it will benefit our consumers in long run and will help our sales. The legal / regulatory has now became a huge strength for us due to the fact of the FDA approving of all types of hearing aids for kids and adults of all ages. Detailed Internal Factor and External Factor Weakness The weakness of our company Internal wise with management is that we are all very young and our youth could lead us to problems in the first couple of years until we get a little more experience under our belt. Offerings should not be that big of a deal with the type of device that we have available, however the companies that sell battery operated hearing aids will probably counter with specials on their hearing aids to try to keep their customers or attract more to stay in business.

Our marketing is our biggest weakness that we have and that is due to the fact that we have no national awareness, but we believe that this will soon become a strength once people find out about our product and services. The personal side has no weakness. Our finance is a weakness because we believe at first we will only have limited capabilities due to the fact that we are a new company with a new product, but like the marketing that will change over time. Our manufacturing will be a weakness of our to a degree only because all technology devices will have some type of glitch / error from time to time so this could cause consumer to either become unhappy or impatient with us, however we will do everything we can to correct it or prevent it. The R&D should not be a problem and should only present nothing but strengths for us. Moving on to our External factor weakness, the same goes for our consumer / social as our R&D. The competitive side could become a weakness for our comp any only if other companies start to or try to duplicate our state-of-the-art Battery-Less-Hearing Aid device.

Our technological will only become a weakness if other companies comes out with something more advanced and updated than our device. The Economic is our second biggest weakness as there are more and more people that are becoming or starting to accept "deaf life". These people accept the fact that they are going deaf and want to do nothing to try to enhance their hearing or life. The legal / regulatory to our knowledge will have no downside for us. Industry Analysis: Trends in Hard of Hearing People and Hearing Aids According to a web site called web, "in today's society there is approximately 28 million Americans, or about one in every ten people in this country, has a hearing loss.

Projections indicate that this number and percentage will grow as Baby Boomers age and increasing noise pollution continues to take its toll". Being Hard of Hearing is very common in today's society, however hearing aids are not, as there are only about 1/5th of the people with that are Hard of Hearing whom actually own or wear a hearing aid. Our company, however believes that with our product being extremely low cost (in the long run) and helps restores hearing that we can change that stat to at least 4/5th of the people with hearing loss owning a hearing aid. A web site called web had some relevantly interesting information that dealt with hearing aids and people Hard of Hearing. The stats that they had were: o Hearing loss is the number one disability in the world. o Hearing loss is the most preventable disability in the world. o Number of people who need hearing aids: 25 million o Number of people who own hearing aids: 5 million o 15 of every 1000 people under age 18 have a hearing loss. o Nearly 90% of people over age 80 have a hearing loss. o The hearing aid is the second most widely used assertive technological device after the walking cane. o 3 out of 100 school children are affected by hearing impairment. Bella lala. com states that "10% of the population of the industrialized world suffers from some form of impairment that can be addressed by hearing aids.

With only 20% of the market penetrated, both existing and new hearing aid companies (and their financial backers) see the significant market opportunity in a growing market. The hearing healthcare industry - 'Currently, $2.5 billion a year is spent on hearing care in the United States, which represents one third of the worldwide expenditures for hearing care. Government estimates indicate that the market will quadruple as the population ages and the youth of America continue to destroy their hearing. A definite shift in the age of the first time wearers of hearing aids, has already begun with people experiencing hearing loss at a much younger age.

In fact, it has been reported that 15% of all students graduating from college today have a hearing loss equivalent to their parents". About 5 years ago the average age when a person started to wear a hearing age was around the age of 78 years old, but it has now dropped to 68 years old in today's society and I can guarantee you that in the next 5 years it will drop to about 50 years old. These trends tell us that there needs to be a change in the hearing industry and we believe that we have found the best solution that will met our consumers satisfaction and needs. Our Battery- Less-Hearing Aid will help revive the Hard of Hearing community along with the hearing industry.

Competitors Starting up a business that will eventually run out battery operated hearing aids will mean that we will have stiff competition with our competitors. However, our competitors are merely going to be companies that sell battery operated hearing aids and they will not have to much to offer to Hard of Hearing patients other than big time discounts on either their hearing aids or their batteries or both. As of right now people spend anywhere from 180 dollars to 700 dollars on just a hearing aid depending on what kind you get. On top of that patients spend anywhere from 1,400 dollars to 2,600 dollars a year alone just on batteries and battery testers. With our product we wipe out that expense that the Hard of Hearing patients would have to spend on batteries and we have one set price for our Battery-Less Hearing Aid. The only other option our competitors would have, would to try to duplicate our Battery-Less-Hearing aid and sell it for a lower price.

If it came to that then we would have to reevaluate our marketing process, however by the time our competitors did duplicate our Battery-Less-Hearing Device we will by then have upgrade ours to make sure we on top of our competitors. Marketing and Product Objectives Battery-Less-Hearing Aid has the intent to take advantage of our state-of-the-art product and use it to its potential to maximize our product and our growth both in the United States and out. These are detailed below: . Current Markets: The current market will grow by becoming nationally recognized and upgrading our device. In addition to this our sales will grow by attracting potential Hard of Hearing candidates and Hard of Hearing patients.

With the increase of this, word will eventually get around increasing our potential and efficiency... New Markets: By the end of year 10 our Battery-Less-Hearing Aid company will be expanded into one company in every city of every state along with national sales out of the United States... New Products: Battery-Less-Hearing Aid will upgrade its device and continue to do research to better suit the needs, wants, demands, and desires of all of our Hard of Hearing patients. Target Markets The primary target market for Battery-Less-Hearing Aid is all Hard of Hearing patients along with all potential Hard of Hearing patients that range from any kind of income as our product promotes cost effectiveness. These patients are the ones that we strive to allow them to live their life to the fullest and without hassle.

We depend on them just as much as they depend on us. Points of Difference These are certain characteristics that make the Battery-Less-Hearing Aid a unique product and distinguishes us from our competitors. These two important areas are stated below: . A unique aspect that allows patients to be able to hear without a battery, unlike our competitors hearing aids that require a battery to hear.

Even without a battery our patients hear the same as they did with a battery operated hearing aid and do not have to worry about recharging batteries all the time have... Our product is cost effective as our patients only have to pay once and that is for the Battery-Less-Hearing Aid, compared to our competitors patients have to pay for the battery powered hearing aid along with all the costs that come with the purchases of the batteries just to be able to hear. Positioning In the past hearing aids have always been costly to consumers and a hassle as they always have to worry about their batteries dying on them. However with our state-of-the-art product we have eliminated both of those and are trying to establish ourselves with the consumers with a high-quality Battery-Less-Hearing Aid that is cost effect, reliable and hassle free.

Marketing Program The four marketing mix elements of the Battery-Less-Hearing Aid marketing program are detailed below. (also known as the 4 P's). Product Strategy First we will summarize the product line and then cover the approach to product quality and packaging. Product Line: Battery-Less-Hearing Aid, retailing for 175 dollars or two for 300 dollars is only available through our company. Unique Product Quality: The state-of-the-art Battery-Less-Hearing Aid is truly a Hard of Hearing patients ultimate dream. Our products unique fact that it is a hearing aid that can operate without a battery and enhance a Hard of Hearing patients life is all that needs to be said.

Our product is made with high quality technology and was made to suit the need, wants, demand, and desire of Hard of Hearing patients. Packaging: Battery-Less-Hearing Aid ensures that your hearing device is properly packaged so it can not be damaged while being delivered to you. We provide the Battery-Less-Hearing Aid in a protective hard black case that ensure you will receive our device in perfect condition to enhance your hearing right away. Price Strategy Battery-Less-Hearing Aid at 175 dollars or two for 300 dollars is priced relatively cheep compared to the average cost of a battery operated hearing aid at 440 dollars. To top that off you will then be able to take advantage of never having to buy batteries again and save yourself anywhere from 1,400 dollars a year to 2,600 dollars are year alone on batteries. Promotion Strategy We only have one key promotion strategy and that is by sending out letters to all Hard of Hearing patients along with prospective Hard of Hearing patients.

Our targets are narrow so we will then also rely on current Battery-Less-Hearing Aid users to also pass word on to others about our unique product. Place (Distribution) Strategy Battery-Less-Hearing Aid will be distributed through us. We do everything, as we make the product and sell it. As our company grows into a nationally known company we will then open up side shop stores so that we can have one of our companies in every city of every state.

Financial Data and Projections Future Sales Revenues Battery-Less-Hearing Aid is a company that is just being started so we have no past sales revenues to share with you, however we will give you what we believe our future sales will be like in 10 years from now. In the chart below you can see that we believe that our sales will double each year. Five-Year Projections Five-year financial projections for Battery-Less-Hearing Aid appear below: These projections reflect the continuing growth in the number of aids sold and increasing production and distribution of economies of scale as sales volume increases. Organization Battery-Less-Hearing Aid presents its organizational chart on the next page. It shows that we are always thinking of new ways to improve our business for us and our consumers.

Implementation Plan Introducing Battery-Less-Hearing Aid to new cities in new states is going to be a very complex task and requires use to gain consumer awareness among our target market that was mentioned earlier. The anticipated outcome to enter these cities in new states appears below: Evaluation and Control The monthly sales targets in cases have been set for Battery-Less-Hearing Aid for each city in each state. Actual case sales will be compared with these targets and tactical marketing programs modified to reflect the unique set of factors that are in each city.