Applying The Buying Center To Planned Parenthood

I currently work for a non-profit organization, which is Planned Parenthood, they are the most trusted reproductive health care provider across the country. Planned Parenthood is a non-profit organization that provides reproductive health care for those that are insured or uninsured at a low affordable cost. They provide reproductive health care to men, women and young people (Our Services, n.d.). The services that are provided are STI testing, infection check, contraception, wellness exams, education and much more (Our Services, n.d.). In the health care industry, the influence in buying new laptops is the patients care and being able to store their medical records in electronic health records, which is a federal mandate for all healthcare providers across the country.

When it comes to the buying center there are five different purchase decisions for the product that is purchased. These decisions are based on the users, influencers, buyers, deciders, and gatekeeper (Pride & Ferrell, 2017). Users are who use the product, for example for our health care assists they use the laptops to room and input information in our management system about the patient before the clinician see the patient. The clinician uses the laptop to input the visit information in and what they discuss during their visit. The clinician also orders labs and medication through the laptop and can also print prescriptions if it is something that we are unable to send electronically to the pharmacy. The clinician also gets lab results sent through our system to be able to see what the patient’s test results are from our lab we use for serving our tests. This is how the users decide what is best to get for the on-job requirements for caring for our patients. Influencers would be informatics and IT department personnel. These two departments would have the highest influence on what computer or what is needed for the organization. These two departments are who are involved when new and advanced technology is needed for the organization (Pride & Ferrell, 2017). They will also help the buyer when it comes to getting the correct equipment needed for each department. There are different laptops that departments need to complete their jobs, for example managers will more than likely need a laptop with the 9 key on the keyboard panel. On the other hand, a healthcare assistant would not need those keys because they are not crunching numbers to show the performance of their teams. Buyers would be the senior leadership, for example at Planned Parenthood this would be our Vice President of Health services. She would be the person to approve the purchase along with our finance department, which would be the Vice President of Finance. The VP of Health Services and the VP of Finance would work in collaboration to determine what would provide the return on investment when it comes to the purchase of new laptops and which ones need to be replaced before the others. The finance department is where they would be able to tell the VP of Health Services which computers would need to continue in circulation and being used in the health centers and those that are needing to be depreciated and new ones purchased. The deciders come into collaboration with IT, VP of Health Services and VP of Finance. These three department heads would need to be the ones to decide which laptops to purchase for what departments. The reason for their collaboration would be so they are able to meet the needs of each department that needs new laptops. IT department would be the gatekeepers, because they are who controls the information and the technology for the organization within different roles of the organization (Pride & Ferrell, 2017).

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The other influential pieces of the decision process are environmental, organizational, interpersonal and individual (Pride & Ferrell, 2017). First, they recognize there is a problem or a need for the department (Pride & Ferrell, 2017). They come together to decide on a product that would be used to solve the problem or need for the department (Pride & Ferrell, 2017). Then they would need to find a supplier that would be best for the purchase of the laptops (Pride & Ferrell, 2017). Then they would order the laptops from the supplier of the organizations choice and then evaluate the supplier’s performance with product and service (Pride & Ferrell, 2017). The environmental decision making is influenced by competitors, economic factors, political factors, regulatory factors, technology changes and many more (Pride & Ferrell, 2017). The organizational factors are the organization’s objectives, buying policies, and sociocultural issues (Pride & Ferrell, 2017). When it comes to interpersonal factors are the relationship with those in the buying center and this is to satisfy all parties involved (Pride & Ferrell, 2017). The individual factors are educational levels, tenure and position within the organization (Pride & Ferrell, 2017). The reason for them having a higher influence is their time at the organization and knowing the job role and requirements (Pride & Ferrell, 2017).

The reason for these job titles selected for these various areas are because they are the most influential areas of each department. Example the VP of Health Services is going to be getting all his or her information from the person within the current job role that needs the laptop, or they are seeing how things are functioning when observing those areas of need. The person that the salesperson should focus on when making a sale is going to be the VP of Health Services because she is the one that has the final say on what we are purchasing for the organization and per department. The buying process differs per organization because each organization uses different areas of who handles the operations and sales for the organization. Some organizations might use the VP as their go to purchase the business operations person is who handles all the things that are needed to make sure the organization operates and has all the tools needed to run smoothly. It just depends on the structure of the organization, but at the end of the day there is always someone they have in charge to handle getting what the organization needs to move into the future.

References

1. Our Services. (n.d.). Retrieved from Planned Parenthood: https://www.plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-greater-ohio/our-patients/our-services
2. Pride, W. M., & Ferrell, O. (2017). Foundations of Marketing Seventh Edition. Boston: Cengage Learning .