Reducing Loneliness And Social Isolation Through In-Home Care Services: Hope

The Objective

Discuss About The Loneliness Social Contact Internet Addiction?

It is essential to plan for the launch of a new product or service in the market. Without proper planning, it is difficult to almost impossible to do business in any sector in today’s world, where, market competition is fierce. A launch plan, based on proper market analysis and assessment, can help an organization or company to introduce its product or service in such a way that would guarantee market share at its fullest possible amount (Huq et al., 2017). Maximum market share is dependent upon market exposure: the more attention of the potential consumers that can be received, the more he actual market sales. Launch readiness plan refers to the intricate and time consuming process that involves market research, analyzing the conditions that are currently prevailing in the market, other parameters controlling the functions of the market and devise a set of strategies that would be the best suited for the purpose of introducing the new product or service into the market (Johansson?Sköldberg, Woodilla & Çetinkaya, 2013). While conducting a market research, a number of things must be kept in mind to make sure that the market research is aimed towards the core purposes of launching the new product. Parameters include understanding the targeted audience: who are the product is going to be sold to; the purpose of the product: how will it benefit the customers, or, why would the customers want to buy the new product or service over the others that are available in the market already. While designing the new product, it is imperative to make the product or service different from the other products or services that are currently available; else, the basic premise of the innovating or inventing it becomes nullified (Oxman, 2017). Product differentiation is a subtle thing, that needs to be done very precisely and explicitly so that the customers can easily understand the difference and the benefits that they are entailed to receive by choosing the product. While the product differentiation has to be done keeping the customers’ needs in mind, it should also adhere to the organizational beliefs and ideologies so that it is a representation of the organization itself. Without a concrete launch readiness plan, an organization can never fully grip the consequences of introducing the new product or service into the market, which is of paramount importance to do business successfully and generate a profit (Bian & Leung, 2015).

Tools that are used by Hope

The new service that is being introduced to the market that will provide assistance to the elderly and other people as well, who seek help. The servicing providing company, Hope, is focused upon reaching out to the people who need help and provide them with the same.

In today’s world, where micro families have become the norm, and work has dominated leisure, the touch if intimacy has started to fade from the lives of the people. Hope believes that while our lives have been blessed by new luxurious aspects and have been made comfortable by many other things, people have become lonelier (Levick-Parkin & Hanson, 2015). Whether they show it to the others or not, humans feel less integrated within the society. The advent of the notion of a global village and the extensive reach of the internet have made sure that the people across the world are more connected than ever before. Borders have been erased virtually thanks to social media the easy access to the internet. The immense freedom that the individuals experience these days are beyond anything that was ever imagined even a few years ago. The openness that is provided by the modern outlook of the world and the want to form a greater society that transcends barriers have given people the advantage of knowing about the greater world that is around them. The lines between public and private have become blurred as well as the concepts of reality and fantasy. Virtual world can take people out of the mundane reality (Heiman, Olenik-Shemesh & Eden, 2015).

However, amidst all of this integration and web connecting billions, somehow, the string that kept the humans together seems to become weaker. The greater the connection became on social media, the weaker the bond between people became in reality. Hope believes that the world has become a mechanical one, where everyone is motivated by incentives at work and exposure on the social media (Stamatis, 2015). People are only doing what they think would elevate their position and status in the eyes of the others. The wish to connect to the greater world has made it inevitable to lose touch with the people one is surrounded by. Hope aims to provide a service that would enable people to feel less lonely. The organization believes that the world needs to be shown that there is still goodness alive and wishes to remind everyone deserves to be loved and shown affection. Every person deserves the warmth of another human in a supportive manner. Hope has been founded with a group of trained and government licensed staff members who all believe that the world will be better place if everyone decides to show a little more love to the others. The rise of the concept of nuclear families have made families grow smaller by the day and this often results in elderly people being forced to live alone, without anyone to take care for them (McDonald & Wilson, 2016). While old age homes are popular, Hope believes that no human can be more comfortable other than their own homes.  This thought has led Hope to formulate a service plan that would have its staffs to take care of the people in need in their own homes, rather than bringing them somewhere else.

Time Frame and Recommendations

While the intentions of the organization are undoubtedly noble, it is impossible to operate and run any business without a proper planning and market analysis, which help to understand whether there indeed is any need for the service that is being introduced (Weidman, Dickerson, & Koebel, 2015). Several tools help in this regard:

• Visualization: This is a tool that helps an organization to understand the specific requirements of the customers and shape the products or services accordingly. The requirements and the services provided must be aligned in order for the product that is being rolled out to be successful in the market. Visualization helps an organization to understand which client base is going to be most benefited the most and who will avail the product.
• Mapping: Understanding how would the journey be, from blue printing the product to introducing it to the market, is an essential process that helps to shape the entire operations of an organization. The use of this tool is dependent a lot upon speculations and hypothetical assumptions about the needs of the market. In order to make the assumptions least flawed or unrealistic, market research has to be perfectly conducted.
• Value chain analysis: This analysis process ensure that the customers are returned the best value for the money that is pent upon purchasing the product or service. Hope believes that money is just a byproduct of the services that are to be provided and is just a small part of the entire process of serving the society. It also gives an idea about the necessities of the customers and how would the new service be used by them. This is, in effect, a journey tracing the intentions of the customers back and aligning them with the core beliefs of the organization itself.
• Mind Mapping: This is a tool that facilitates to understand the broader spectrum of the market about how can one set of services help another set of services or activities. The inter-linkages of the entire society is important to comprehend to shape the service package in a way that would best suit the purpose of introducing the product into the market. Hope has teams that are constantly trying to better understand the interface of different sectors of the society, that would enable the marketing team to advertise the new service package and the benefits to the preferred clientele.
• Concept development: The prospect of running a successful business often relies upon the viability of the sector that is being targeted by the organization as the primary clients. Understanding the social norms, beliefs, structure and practices can help Hope coherently create the service bundle in the desired way (de Jong Gierveld, Van Tilburg & Dykstra, 2016).
• Co-creation: Trying to develop the new product or service with the help from the customers can prove to be very helpful. The customers are the ones who decide the market requirements and the other parameters that govern running a business. Inputs from the customers can be important to understand the actual necessities (Kerzner, 2013). Hope has been talking to a lot of elderly people and other surveys throughout social media has been conducted to understand why do they feel secluded and lonely and exactly what do they think would help them.
• Prototyping: Creating a basic and rough version of the final product early on the stage of the planning process is important. This helps to effectively test the product in reality and any alterations, if necessary, can be planned in accordance to the customer responses.
• The basic pillars of running any business or providing any service to the society is to comprehend the answer to the questions “What? How? Why?” These answers provide the prime decisions about how to proceed with service and who to target as the potential customers.

Hope wishes to conduct and be complete the market analysis within a period of six months. The first thing that is to be understood is what are the prevailing conditions in the society so that the targeted audience can be identified. This would help the marketing department to start with a good strong platform to work upon. The marketing department would then make strategies that would bring the service plan the maximum market exposure so that most people get to know about the service. Based on the assessments of the marketing department, advertising department would come up with the most relevant ways to present the service to the customers and the sales department would be employed to maximize the sales by elaborately spreading the ideals of the company so that more people can be made to understand what are the true intentions of Hope. The service that is being provided is a long term process and requires the staff to stay committed to the customers. The relationship with the customers do not end soon and they have to be kept within communication range for as long as possible.

The long term plans of Hope is to ensure that the loneliness and the feeling of being secluded within the society would be reduced and people would again connect with each other in real life, making the world a better and happier place to live in.

Empathizing with the social victims is the only way the staff of Hope can achieve the goals and the beliefs of the organization. The single most important recommendation that has to be adhered by the staff and the organization is to follow what they would presume to be humane and how would they want to be treated by others. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is the moral standard that has to be followed by everyone who is a part of the organization.

All of the information that is gathered is based on market research and a profound understanding of the social structure and the drawbacks of a digitally connected society (Yao & Zhong, 2014). The only viable and dependable resources for this can come from human understanding. Doing extensive market survey and understanding why do people feel sad and lonely and what they think can uplift their moods and make them feel included and loved.

Conclusion

To conclude, from the above discussion, it is evident that Hope has been planning the launch of their service into the market with a knowledge base that has been gathered tirelessly and being compiled with care. This idea about what are reasons for the society to face such problems would provide important understanding about how to formulate plans that would help to eradicate the evil. This would most definitely help to reduce one of the most prominent problems of the modern world, where virtual relations are given more priorities than the real world ones. Hope believes in the name of its organization and believes that it is the only thing that can help the society to be rid of all the problems posed by modern views and technologies.

References

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Kerzner, H. (2013). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

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Yao, M. Z., & Zhong, Z. J. (2014). Loneliness, social contacts and Internet addiction: A cross-lagged panel study. Computers in Human Behavior, 30, 164-170.