GLOBAL MARKET OPPORTUNITY ASSESSMENT FOR CANCER INSURANCE

Description GLOBAL MARKET OPPORTUNITY ASSESSMENT FOR CANCER INSURANCE Cancer is a leading cause of premature death. Major types of cancer include skin, lung, stomach, breast, and prostate cancer. It is a life-threatening disease that is often difficult and expensive to treat, with medical bills running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. In many countries, people buy health insurance to pay the costs of medical care. Health insurance companies such as AFLAC and American International Group (AIG) specialize in supplemental policies to cover specialized cancer care. Managerial Challenge Given limited resources, managers must identify the most appropriate countries to target with their products and services. Because decisions about which markets to enter can be very challenging, managers conduct research on the available choices. Initially, managers systematically narrow the number of potential target countries using Global Market Opportunity Assessment. In this exercise, your challenge is to assess markets for supplemental cancer insurance in various countries. Background Companies and governments often provide citizens with basic medical insurance. However, these policies may not fully cover the high cost of life-threatening ailments such as cancer. Moreover, most people lack comprehensive health insurance against cancer. Thus, people often purchase supplemental health insurance. A sizeable market for comprehensive cancer insurance exists around the world. There are numerous health insurance companies that offer cancer insurance. When seeking to sell insurance abroad, these firms need to find out what countries offer the best sales prospects. Because the choice of potential markets can be overwhelming, managers use Global Market Opportunity Assessment (GMOA). Task In this exercise, your task is to conduct a Global Market Opportunity Assessment to identify the most promising country to target for sales of supplemental cancer insurance. You will examine variables that can help you estimate the size of relevant industry sales within each of four possible target countries. Your assessment of each target country will be based on industry-specific indicators of demand for cancer insurance. PART 2: GLOBAL MARKET OPPORTUNITY ASSESSMENT FOR CANCER INSURANCE Expanded Background Companies often provide their employees with basic medical insurance. These policies may not fully cover the high costs of specialized cancer treatment. Some national governments provide heath insurance to their citizens. Such policies may not pay medical expenses for major illnesses above a certain cost level. Many countries lack well-developed health insurance programs. Many people either lack coverage or worry about losing insurance if they lose or change jobs. Worldwide, the vast majority of people lack comprehensive health insurance against cancer. Consequently, there exists a sizeable market for specialized cancer insurance in countries around the world. Health insurance companies such as AFLAC and American International Group (AIG) specialize in supplemental policies to cover specialized cancer care. Supplemental cancer insurance is usually sold through insurance agents and insurance brokers. A typical agent establishes a sales office that can be easily visited by insurance customers. Occasionally, agents contact potential customers directly by telephone or in their homes to sell insurance. Insurance is sometimes sold over the Internet. Task and Methodology When seeking to sell cancer insurance abroad, there are several issues that a company needs to address. What countries offer the best prospects? In which foreign markets can supplemental cancer insurance be profitably sold? The choice of potential countries can be overwhelming. To address this challenge, managers employ Global Market Opportunity Assessment (GMOA) to identify the most appropriate countries to target. In the first stage of GMOA for supplemental cancer insurance, the researcher would typically conduct a country screening to filter out the most promising country markets. The most important variables to research at this stage include market size (usually assessed by examining each country’s population); growth rate (typically the growth rate of each country’s population); and market intensity (the buying power of each county’s residents in terms of income level). At this stage of GMOA, the researcher would ordinarily consider all possible countries worldwide. However, in this exercise, we simplify the task by narrowing the list of countries to the following four: China, Brazil, South Africa and Czech Republic. For each of these four countries, your task is to assess industry market potential to estimate the size of likely industry sales, that is, the likelihood of sales potential for supplemental cancer insurance. Specifically, for each of the countries given, you should research the following variables: