BCG Matrix analysis for a weight loss company startup

Action Strategy Assume plan start a healthcare related business hometown. What products/services choose? Use BCG Matrix, General Electronic Model, MAC Model conduct analysis. List reference(s) APA format

Action Strategy: BCG Matrix for a new weight loss (health-related) company

Cash cows

More and more Americans today are looking to lose weight. Weight-loss companies offer a variety of strategies, spanning from juice detoxes, online counseling for nutrition and exercise, gyms, prepared foods, to weight loss counseling. One 'cash cow,' given the popularity of dieting, is offering a prepaid package involving nutritional counseling, weekly meetings, and weigh-ins, along the lines of Weight Watchers. "Few diet plans have stood the test of time the way Weight Watchers has...One of the reasons Weight Watchers is so popular is because they don't force a taboo food list. You're wise enough to make your own choices of what to eat" (Weight Watchers plan, 2012, 3 Fat Chicks on a Diet). Group support, accountability, and portion control are the focus of such 'sensible' diet plans.

Question marks

Jenny Craig and Nutrisystem offer prepared foods to consumers for a fee. Offering prepared foods to facilitate weight loss has also grown in popularity. Jenny Craig was deemed the "queen of popular diets." according to Consumer Reports Health and ranked highest in terms of long and short-term weight loss of all existing diet plans (Conley 2011). However, offering prepared foods for dieters is expensive, for both the dieters and the company, which must offer a wide variety of nutritious foods.

Dogs

Extremely low-fat diets are no longer popular amongst consumers. It is widely regarded now as a scientific fallacy that 'eating fat makes you fat' and most popular diets allow for moderate amounts of fat, or in the case of low-carb diets, a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet.

Q2. Pricing Strategies

"Prestige pricing refers to the practice of setting a high price for a product, throughout its entire life cycle -- as opposed to the short-term 'opportunistic' high price of price 'skimming.' This is done in order to evoke perceptions of quality and prestige with the product or service" (Pricing strategies: Other pricing strategies, 2012, Tutor2u). Offering additional services to members through a 'Gold Card' program is one way to engage in prestige pricing. This might include spa services at the adult daycare facility for massages, yoga classes and acupuncture, in addition to more regular health services. Gold Card members would have access to certain areas of the on-site fitness facility, like a sauna or pool and free use of towels, lockers, and so forth. The perception of exclusivity encourages the purchase of such a plan, as well as additional amenities.

Price bundling involves the combining of services that consumers want with other services they may be less inclined to buy from the provider, as a way of increasing profits and demand for harder-to-sell items. This is commonly used by media companies, which may 'bundle' certain high-demand cable channels with less attractive cable channels. In the case of a healthcare organization for seniors, this might include bundling highly desirable services, such as the actual daycare, with services that the seniors might seek out elsewhere, such as seeing the on-premises doctors for regular checkups or using the pharmacy for seniors' refills on their medication. Bundling can be accomplished in a variety one ways: the purpose of discount bundling is to encourage consumers to purchase more items by offering the bundled services than a lower price than they could obtain individually from an outside organization. Another option is to offer the services only as a bundle -- consumers wanting daycare alone would have to look elsewhere. However, the most common a mixed strategy in which "both the bundle and the individual products are offered, i.e. separate pricing and pure bundling are combined" such as with the McDonald's value meals, where the items are offered separately and as a packaged option (Wuebker & Simon 2005). "Alternatively, a discount is given for the second product if the full price is paid for the first" leader product (Wuebker & Simon 2005). The leader product is more desirable, while the second product is priced low. "Drugs are often sold to hospitals or Health Maintenance Organizations in a similar manner" (Wuebker & Simon 2005).