Being in the senior care industry, you most likely have heard of the troubles surrounding Brookdale Senior Living. While their troubles have been front and center in the news, and they have even received offers of a buy-out, they chose to place a new CEO in charge and face the “perfect storm” ahead.
In multiple interviews the former CFO, now CEO, believes that her intimate knowledge of the challenges and her own senior care experiences can help her turnaround the failing business within the next year. While she anticipates 2018 one of the most difficult years for the company, changes she has slated are expected to turn the business around.
Whether your business model is similar to Brookdale or not, many of the troubles they have faced and will face, are similar to others in the senior care industry. Perhaps lessons learned from Brookdale can help prevent your facility from experiencing the same pains.
The new CEO has uncovered issues such as over hiring in administrative positions, operational procedures that were time consuming and needless for managers, and the lack of customer centered care. She discovered that it was critical to the survival of the business that they become more sensitive to the issues surrounding senior living. Something many businesses have gotten away from.
Their new roadmap is more customer centric and will have a local focus. This may mean streamlining corporate procedures and policies, laying off administrative staff, and even restructuring marketing plans. The goal is to great value to the customer more effectively and efficiently.
While some of her suggested changes will be painful, they are necessary. Others in the senior care industry could stand to do the same “housekeeping” and really look at what they have become. Are you customer focused? You must get closer to your customers to discover what they need and want, then build your structure around that!
It will be interesting to follow Brookdale throughout 2018 and see how these proposed changes will affect not only their financial picture, but their customer satisfaction!
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