Search results

This paper aims to address problems in patient flow and identify the reasons behind extensive wait time at a public liver transplant outpatient clinic in an education and research hospital through the use of Lean health-care theories.

This paper opted for the application of Lean thinking and action research strategy. Data were collected through personal observations, interviews with users and team brainstorming. A value stream map was developed, improvement possibilities were identified and non-value-added activities were attempted to be eliminated.

Significant problems were identified and improvements were implemented and measured. The major remedial measures were: change the scheduling pattern, create a flow chart and a Kanban visual guide for medical students. In addition, an institutional change in the medical appointment scheduling software collaborated in the reduction of time and in the patient’s displacement. The waiting time was reduced by 4.5 h, and the per cent complete and accurate increased by 50 per cent.

The flow was redesigned, and a culture of continuous improvement was introduced. Visiting the place where work was being done, leaders identified and created more value to the process without significant costs. The Gemba Walk was a powerful tool, interacting with people and processes in a Kaizen spirit.

Public health services in developing countries are one of the most deprived social needs of good practice. It will be useful for those who need examples about how to apply Lean tools in health care.

Digital technologies, digitalised consumers and the torrent of customer data have been transforming marketing practice. In discussing such trends, existing research has either focussed on the skills marketers need or broad-based approaches such as agile methods but has given less consideration to just how such skills or approaches might be developed and used in marketers' day-to-day activities and in the organisation of marketing in the firm. This is what the authors address in this paper.

This paper adopts an in-depth case study approach to examine an exemplary digital enterprise in transformation of their digital marketing. The insights were gathered from 25 interviews, netnography and document analysis of the case organisation in addition to 10 interviews with independent experts.

Drawing on practice-oriented approach, the authors show how organisations respond to the emerging trends of digital consumers and big data by taking a ‘hacking marketing’ approach and developing novel marketing expertise at disciplinary boundaries. The authors put forward three sets of practices that enable and shape the hacking marketing approach. These include spanning the expertise boundary, making value measurable and experimenting through which their adaptive, iterative and multidisciplinary work occurs. This explains how managing digital consumers and big data is not within the realm of information technology (IT) functions but marketing and how marketing professionals are changing their practice and moving their disciplinary boundaries.

This study offers practical contributions for firms in terms of identifying new work practices and expertise that marketing specialists need in managing digital platforms, digitalised consumers and big data. This study’s results show that enterprises need to design and implement strong training programmes to prepare their marketing workforce in adopting experimentations of agile approach and data-driven decision making. In addition, Marketing education should be changed so that programmes consider a review of their courses and include the novel marketing models and approaches into their curriculum.

This study contributes to the nascent discussions by unpacking how enterprises can develop new marketing expertise and practices beyond skillsets and how such practices form new hacking marketing approach which addresses the problem of the inability of the conventional marketing approach to show its value within the firm.