Deciding to purchase the right item or product that would positively impact an organization is critical for a successful organization’s operations. The purchasing process is vital for a company because no company would like to engage in buying an item or a product that would not add to its effort to achieve its mission and objectives in the organization. Note that the buying process in a company has different stages. It involves recognizing the need to have a specific product or item that the business needs after identifying the problem that makes it necessary to have such a product or item as its solution. Identifying the supplies and selecting the best suppliers for the product are some stages that follow, after which the company will decide on the best way to evaluate the products, which will entail the comparison of the items or the product to find the best among them. The complexities that arise in the buying process force different companies to come up with a group of people within the company that is responsible for the buying process. In this article, the discussion is to understand the buying center and its roles and how the Mayo clinic would operate when it needs to purchase laptops for its staff.
The company
Mayo Clinic is one of the best hospitals concerning services in the United States. The hospital is the first and largest integrated group practice in the world. At Mayo Clinic, the mission that pushes the hospital forward is to inspire hope and contribute to health and well-being by providing the best care to every patient through integrated clinical practice, education, and research. The hospital ranks first in most specialized areas such as cancer, research, wellness programs, and education, and disease prevention. People also know Mayo Clinic from different online platform research that it publishes on its webpage that has been of help for millions of patients at a global stage. Mayo Clinic is currently one of the hospitals at the worldwide stage that is championing for the incorporation of technology in healthcare. The company is integrating different technologies as a way to have a commonplace to manage the hospital data, improve the efficiency of services, and also increase accuracy in healthcare provision at a global stage. In this sense, it provides a good case of analysis regarding understanding how it purchases most of its technological products ( Beck et al., 2018). Therefore, understanding how the Mayo clinic would operate its buying center when buying laptops for the specific department would be the best way to understand the concept of purchasing center in the healthcare system.
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Roles in a Buying Center
Buying Center is a group of employees, family members, or members of any type of organization responsible for finalizing major purchase decisions. In a significant business setting such as the Mayo clinic, purchasing a technological product such as a laptop for staff needs the input of many people or staff. It is with such regard that businesses prefer having within their reach different people who get involved in such decision making processes to ensure that the organization receives the best product that would add value in the process of attaining their goals and missions. Note that the decision to select people that fit into the group that constitutes buying center for a company depends upon the nature of items the organization needs as well as the technicality that comes with such an item. Though the roles of the individuals that constitute the business center vary depending on the nature of the company and the business they involve in, most of these people have six roles that are universal for most companies. The same roles would also be critical for the Mayo clinic, as shall be discussed ( Kleinaltenkamp et al., 2019).
The first role of the buying center is the initiation of the buying process. These are people called the initiators. Note that the need for an item or a product that a company wants to use comes from the users of the product. However, there are situations where the management, the engineers, or those who are in charge of maintaining the system can see the need to have such an item or a product in the organization if they become the initiators. For the Mayo Clinic, the best people to occupy this position is the Record departments in different branches of this hospital. These can be the health record officers who are in charge of collecting and compiling data. The Information technology director can be also be involved in this case.
The second role is that of the influencers. The influencers are those who have the power to dictates the direction of the outcome of the purchase process. These are technicians and people with qualifications and different expertise that are necessary to understand the specs or specific item the organization need in place. As they have a massive role in determining the best products from the best supplier that the company can opt for as they try to figure out the best item for the purchase. For the Mayo clinic, in this case, the IT department is critical. Human resource managers can also be involved in this group as well as the health record officer in charge of the health record department in several branches of the Mayo clinic.
The third is the decision making by a group of people called the deciders. These are also people with a specific qualification that is responsible for making the final decision on the best product the company needs to acquire. The next role is buying, a decision that is caused by the buyers during the contract processes. The human resource managers at different Mayo clinic branches should be part of this group. Furthermore, the financial directors should also be part of the committee as well as the director of the IT in the hospital.
The next role is end-users. The end users have one of the most critical functions as they are part of the people who take part in the initiation of the process, and the decision on the best product to get. It is the end-users who sometimes identify the problem that needs the organization to solve. For instance, they can identify the faults in any of the machines thus would request the organization to replace them. They can also spot the best machine in the market and request the company to consider them. The end users can be many in this case. They include the laboratory technicians, the health record officers, the IT specialists and engineers, the clinical staff, and pharmacists.
The last role is the gatekeepers, who controls the flow of information about the product and the purchase processes. Gatekeepers are filters of information as the marketers have to pass through them before meeting the decision-makers. For the case of Mayo clinic, the human resource manager, the financial director, together with an IT specialist can be the gatekeepers as the organizations are looking for a proper brand of laptop that enhances the efficiency and effectiveness of their operations. Note that, for the marketing department in any organization, understanding the role of these individuals would be critical in understanding who to target with a specific product in the company.
The Justification
The best people to occupy the position of initiator is the Record department in different branches of this hospital. The record departments get involved in data management for the clinic. These people ensure that they store data to ensure there are no leakages, and also ensure that every patient record in the hospital is captured and stored in the hospital system. The decision involving laptops, thus, is critical for them. The Information technology director can be also be included in this case because they have the expertise that can enable them to recognize the need to replace any faulty laptop or system with a good one to increase efficiency and services in the hospital. They also know how to help them understand the best laptop supplies and thus make them necessary for this section.
The IT department is influential because these people understand the specification of different laptops, and thus they understand the best that the organization can have for its employers. Human resource managers also have a significant role as influencers. These individuals also understand the specification of the laptop that can best suit the current staff, and the best laptop to suit the organization's functions. In this sense, they influence dictating the best the organization needs to choose. For the deciders, human resource managers still are the best people because they understand the staff, the nature of the job, and the nature laptop that best suits the jobs and the staff. The finance director is also part of the decider because with them lies the financial decision. Such people will decide on the best and the cheapest option for the company.
The end-users of the laptop are many in the hospital. They include the lab department, the record department, and the pharmacy deportment with others such as a specialist in different areas such as X-rays, the nurse, and other departments that are connected using technology in the hospital. These individuals are end-users because they understand the nature of the job that suits a particular laptop or model. In this case, they can influence the decision by arguing using different reasons such as the specification of the model they need based on the nature of the job they will be doing with the laptops. The human resource manager, the financial director, together with an IT specialist, can be the gatekeepers in the case of the mayo clinic. For the human resource has the knowledge needed to understand the specification of a laptop that the staffs need and thus, they are critical in the process of purchasing processes as gatekeepers. The IT specialist is also essential in this process because of the wide knowledge that makes them understand not only the process of purchase but also specs of the laptop needed. For the financial director, the financial aspect of this project is necessary, and this makes them critical figures in the decision making the process in entire every stage in the process.
As a marketer of the laptop, targeting the influencers will be the priority because making them understand the specs of the computer would be critical in the entire decision-making process. Also, targeting the financial officers would be essential in this case because convincing them on the prices of the laptop would be a big step towards creating a platform for selling the laptops. Targeting the end-users could also be critical in this case. Marketing the laptop to the user would increase their desire to put pressure on the administration, and this could then be critical for the marketer. Lastly, targeting decision-makers such as IT specialists and human resource managers could also be vital to the marketer in this case. From the entire process, however, there is a difference between the organization and the consumers of the laptop concerning what they need from the computer. For instance, the organization would need to cost-effective laptops because they have to consider the expenditure in comparison to the profits. On the other hand, consumers look at the specifications of the computer.
References
Beck, J. A., Jensen, J. A., Putzier, R. F., Stubert, L. A., Stuart, K. D., Mohammed, H., ... & Fang, J. L. (2018). Developing a newborn resuscitation telemedicine program: a comparison of two technologies. Telemedicine and e-Health , 24 (7), 481-488.
Kleinaltenkamp, M., Karpen, I. O., Plewa, C., Jaakkola, E., & Conduit, J. (2019). Collective engagement in organizational settings. Industrial Marketing Management .
