1. One of the main reasons of the program’s failure would be that clinicians were charged with developing the program. Physicians specialize in medicine, not marketing. Also, if “the survey” was the only attempt at measuring market response, then there would not be accurate representation of possible interest in the project, as surveys are just one indicator of potential usage. Delving into a comprehensive community and regional level of interest and probability would be necessary for a health care project of this scope.

2. Hiring additional salespeople to initiate more subscribers to the managed care plan is inconsistent with an evolutionary marketing perspective because evolutionary marketing has a heavy psychological approach. It postulates that deep study of market segmentation, the needs of consumers, cultural implications, and social motives. Instead of simply enlarging the sales force, this company needs to take a look at how its product is designed to ensure that the product is meeting the needs and desires of the market segments in which it is trying to sell.

3. The limited, but noble, view in the mission statement of the general surgery group is focused solely on surgery. This view is myopic in the sense that there are other considerations to be made regarding the offerings of the general surgery group that don’t involve the actual process of cutting into the flesh. Customer service, compassionate care, patient education, ease of access, insurance and billing concerns, and follow up care should all be addressed in this group’s mission statement. The railroads did not fulfill these types of ancillary needs of their consumers, and they lost customers because they failed to focus on those customers.

4. Focusing on companies with fewer than 500 employees and stressing that the company is local and will have local response, local customers, and local service would be two ways to establish a differential advantage relative to the other two insurance offerings.