Kare Plus Porter's Five and SWOT Analysis

Kare Plus is a care agency that was established in 1989 and has over 80 offices nationwide and is recognized as one of the UK's fastest-growing healthcare staff providers today whose aim is to deliver the highest possible standard of care and first-class customer service. Kare plus provides high-quality support services, care and also provide nurses to several private hospitals, local councils, residential establishment and to private clients as well as providing services to customers in their home. Kare Plus offers a series of healthcare services to a range of clients which include; Staffing solutions to healthcare organizations in the Uk, Homecare services and Support living services (Kareplus.co.uk, 2019). According to Porter (2004), Kare plus’s analysis is grounded on Porter's 5 Forces theory explained below; Industry Competitors; Kare plus faces competition from other care agencies like Oakland Care, Nurse plus which offer the same services like them, and for Kare plus to stand out amongst its competitors, they need to provide high-quality services to their clients and their pay must be competitive. The threat of New Entrants; Kare Plus faces a threat of new entrant because newly established Care agencies might have a higher pay as a strategy to attract Care workers and Nurses and the standard of their training might be high and as such they will get contracts from Care Homes, Hospitals, private homes to provide them with  care workers. The threat of Substitutes; Rather than working for a Care agency which supply staff to care homes, people might choose to work directly for a Care home and as such Care agencies like Kare Plus  will have  limited number  of staff and fewer  contracts  with care homes leading to a fall in their revenue Bargaining power of Buyers; If clients are not satisfied with the quality of service provided by Kare Plus staff they can terminate their contract with them and switch to another care agency which will be a loss to Kare Plus in terms of revenue and their reputation due to the bad feedback which the care home might give. Bargaining power of Suppliers; there are many suppliers of products needed by Kare Plus such as Stationeries, tables, chairs, training material but Kare Plus buys its product from China and Germany because it is cheaper compared to the Uk market. It might become a problem in the future because of no access to the EU market due to Brexit and they also have to deal with exchange rates. Porter’s five forces of competitive position are shown below; FIG 1;                                              Porter’s Forces Model According to Boxwell (1994) Benchmarking is the process by which a company measures its products, services, and practices against its competitors who are leaders in its industry. Benchmarking can enhance competition and help a company to reflect more effectively on their performance. Benchmarking can be used to determining whether a company is efficiently performing its functions and activities and if its costs are in line with those of competitors. There are three ways in which benchmarking can be used by an organization; Internal benchmarking measures whether the organization's performance is improving in different areas. It can also be used to compare departments and team performance. Strategic benchmarking looks at world-class organizations and considers its performance in comparison to these practices. This form of benchmarking is used most when a company needs to go outside of its industry. Competitive benchmarking is where the organization considers its position and performance within its industry sector and among its competitors. Kare Plus needs to examine its performance against other Care agencies operating in the Uk. It might also be beneficial for Kare Plus to look at Care agencies that operate in the world in general. Benchmarking causes Kare Plus to raise the standard and quality of its services to out past its competitors.Kare Plus identifies its weaknesses and strengths through the benchmarking process and allows a strategy for improvement (Courseresources.derby.ac.uk, 2019). The main advantage of benchmarking is that it causes Kare Plus to focus on areas that need special attention such as the quality of its services and it sets the base for improvement and forces Kare Plus to strive for success. Benchmarking helps Kare Plus in finding out new ideas and method s of carrying out its activities by looking at the strategy adopted by its competitors (Stroud, 2019). Benchmarking‘s limitation is that it looks just at areas that need improvement rather than contributing to resolving pressing issues at hand, it does not take into consideration the micro and macro factors that led to competitors' success. The benchmarking process is shown in the diagram below; FIG 2;                                                                 Benchmarking Process SWOT covers the external and internal aspects of an organization. According to Kotler and Armstrong (2009), "Achievement and sustainability of an establishment depend on its capability to audit the external environment where it functions". The external environment comprises of the opportunities and threats of an organization while the strengths and weaknesses are internal factors. Kare Plus's SWOT Analysis will be explained below; Strengths; Kare Plus is known for the good quality of service it offers to a private home, Residential care homes and private hospital and as such it makes it have may contracts with clients for the provision of Nurses and healthcare staff. Kare Plus has a good salary incentive, Career Prospect and they provide ongoing training and continued professional development to their staff and as such many nurses and care assistants prefer working for Kare Plus than other agencies. Weaknesses; Kare Plus has an inadequate complain procedure that is they have a lengthy complain procedure and the forms to fill for a complain are not straight forward. Opportunities; Kare Plus has an opportunity to acquire contracts with many care homes and hospitals as a result of the good feedback given by their current clients because of their current performance. Threats; Kare  Plus faces competition from already established and new care agencies because some of the new care agencies have a higher pay per hour compared to them and as such many staff will want to move to where the pay is higher. SWOT Analysis is shown in the diagram below; FIG 3;                                 SWOT Analysis To conclude,in order for Kare Plus to have a competitive advantage over its competitors the company needs to work on the quality of services which their staffs provide to its clients that is Kare Plus should ensure that their carers and nurses deliver the highest standard of care and customer service in other to achieve this the training provided by Kare Plus to its Carers and  Nurses.

REFERENCES

• Kareplus.co.uk. (2019). The Caring Company | Care Agency UK | Kare Plus. [online] Available at: https://www.kareplus.co.uk/ [Accessed 15 Oct. 2019].
• Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M., & Brennan, R. (2012). Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Prentice-Hall, London.
• Boxwell, R. (1994). Benchmarking for competitive advantage. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, pp.12-24.
• Courseresources.derby.ac.uk. (2019). courseresources.derby.ac.uk. [online] Available at: https://courseresources.derby.ac.uk/webapps/blackboard/execute/displayLearningUnit?course_id=_68360_1&content_id=_3791163_1 [Accessed 15 Oct. 2019].
• Stroud, D. (2019). Understanding the Purpose and Use of Benchmarking - iSixSigma. [online] iSixSigma. Available at: https://www.isixsigma.com/methodology/benchmarking/understanding-purpose-and-use-benchmarking/ [Accessed 15 Oct. 2019].