Canadian Blood Service Case free essay sample

Canadian Blood Services (CBS) has a reputation that makes people feel comfortable in knowing that when they donate blood there will be professionals that will take care of them and they receive the satisfaction of knowing they are saving lives. It is this good feeling that brings donors into clinics to donate. However, Canadian Blood Services faces challenges in recruiting new blood donors and require increase donation collections to keep up with the growing demand for blood. II. Situational Analysis (S. W. O. T) A. Strengths Positive brand image. Provides important and vital services. Saves live (Produces blood for people in need of blood) Nonprofit organization CBS is a national organization that serves all provinces and territories other than Quebec. The geographical spread provided the organization with broad donor base as well as resources. Long history that started in the 1930s which has made the CBS a reputable organization. High level employee and volunteer commitment to the organization. B. Weakness The CBS struggles to keep up with the growing demand for people who need blood. Being that this is a charitable organization, it has limited resources at its disposal. Mismanagement of the blood affects thousands of people. New donor recruitment. Cost of blood collection is high. C. Opportunity Being that CBS has national support, it is able to get donors from across the country. There are many people who want to help others. CBS needs to connect with these people and make donating blood convenient. Loyal corps base of donors and volunteers. Social Media has become a strong cost effective marketing tool. These vital services will always be desperately required. D. Threats Source and quality of blood donation is out of the organization’s control. Certain disease could impact blood collection level. Based on past history, any accident in patient infection during blood transfusion can put CBS into fatal public relation crisis. If economy declines in Canada, financial donations from individual donors, organizational sponsors or even government grants could be negatively impacted, post financial threats to the survival of CBS. Aging population might have negative impact on the donor base. IV. Problem Identification In order for the Canadian Blood Services to meet the demand of blood needed to serve patients, the CBS must increase the amount of donors that give blood. The demand for blood continues to rise. Finding ways to attract people to donate blood can be problematic so that finding incentives for people to donate can be a difficult task. Also, finding way to keep donors giving blood is another issue that needs to be examined further. CBS needs to understand what brings people to CBS locations to give their bloods and find other ways to make giving blood more convenient and efficient. It is vital that CBS find innovates ways to make donors want to give their blood to this organization. V. Evaluation of Alternatives Proposal I: Social media Use social media to raise awareness and recruit new donors. Hire social media specialist to manage Facebook, Twitter, Youtube accounts. Interact with donors to answer their questions and concerns promptly. Personalize marketing effort to individuals for better outcomes. With videos on Youtube you can raise awareness of how important it is to donate blood. This is a better approach to reach younger population, who can be the main resource of future donations. Proposal I: Small Scale Campaigns Organize small scale/regional awareness campaigns and send staff and volunteers to recruit new donors in person. This can be done at events/fairs, on streets, in communities and at universities and workplace. At some popular locations, celebrities can be invited to attract interests and media’s attention. Can team up with local communities (companies and schools) to reach greater audience. Also can share workload with partners, thus ease the manpower required. Proposal II: Give blood, Receive blood The idea behind this would be that if you give blood (3 times per year) you would be considered a regular blood donor. Regular blood donors who are in need of blood would be placed on a separate list, which would put them ahead of people who do not donate. This gives people incentive to donate in that if you are willing and able to donate today, you will be able to receive blood in the future. One can see that there are some fundamental problems with this proposal in that what happens if someone is not capable of donating? The solution to this would be that if you are not capable of donate (tattoos, piercings in the last six months or contaminated blood) these people would be able to volunteer their time to help the CBS such as cleaning clinics and making phone calls to remind people to donate. VI. Recommendation and Conclusion After assessing the alternatives, I recommend that CBS implements a combination of alternative #2 and #3: to use social media for raising awareness, and to focus on small scale campaigns in selected communities. Both alternatives are cost effective and support a personable marketing approach. CBS should continue with what it’s currently using in marketing, including TV and other traditional media advertising, however, direct its increased marketing effort to the two areas recommended above. CBS currently has Facebook and Twitter accounts, which are mostly for casual interactions with donors. Also both have fairly low number of â€Å"likes† (47,253) and â€Å"followers† (7,285). Given the large donor base, these channels have great potential to grow. Professional help should be attained to take the full advantage of these emerging marketing tools. CBS can work with local organizations to arrange specific awareness campaigns. Multiple channels can be used to promote these types of initiatives. Mobile clinics can be added or moved based on CBS’ campaign schedule to promote better results of each event. Also given the diversity population in Canada, promotion literatures, including CBS’ website, should be available in different languages.