Consumers of health care constitute a market that is as diverse as a market can be, yet the idea that companies might profit by segmenting customers to address their varied needs seems almost foreign to the health industry, despite the billions of dollars at stake. We believe companies can uncover areas of untapped value by analyzing patterns in demand for health products and services. A particularly revealing way to segment health consumers, according to our research, is to analyze health and wealth at the same time.

In a survey of 570 people, we looked at consumers’ medical needs, their attitudes about staying healthy, their financial requirements and their financial confidence. We also asked about a range of related issues, such as which providers the respondents trusted and which they didn’t. (The research was conducted with Patricia O’Brien, MD.) Our analysis revealed four broad groups of consumers, each with a distinct health/wealth profile:

“Healthy worriers” are receptive to new health products and services and are willing to change their behavior to improve their health. But as they see health costs rise faster than their income, they feel intense financial pressure. They believe they must make trade-offs between their health and their wealth and they lack confidence about their ability to pay for future care. Their survey responses indicate that the best way to reach them may be through their employers and that these consumers want services to be convenient and simple. Indeed, many of them feel overwhelmed by choices.

The “healthy, wealthy and wise” are the most fit, health conscious and financially confident of the survey respondents. Many of them would purchase complex health- and wealth-related products such as high-deductible health insurance, confident they would use them effectively. They want more choices. Relationships, self-directed analysis tools and quality service are the keys to influencing their decisions.

The “unfit and happy” are self-directed when it comes to finances but are overconfident about their health and ability to pay for future care. They tend not to trust doctors or other health-care providers and although relatively affluent, they are the least receptive to new products and services. Serving these individuals means providing tools and incentives to enable them to help themselves.

“Hapless heavyweights” score below the mean on financial confidence and are the least health conscious; some 72 percent of them are overweight. They resist help yet feel incapable of improving their situations on their own. Of all the segments, this group needs the most external motivation, including support groups and financial penalties.

Segmenting consumers this way, we believe, will generate innovative thinking on the part of companies within and on the edges of the health industry—organizations ranging from medical practices to life insurers. As an example: Financial services firms could target certain of the segments, offering savings and investment programs that meet segment members’ particular needs. They could respond to healthy worriers’ desire for simplicity—and their desire to save for future health needs—by marketing “opt out” savings programs in which an amount is deducted from each paycheck unless participants go to the trouble of declining the offering (such programs have radically higher compliance rates than the opt-in variety). Focusing on the healthy, wealthy and wise, firms could market tax-free health savings accounts to consumers who choose high-deductible insurance plans.

Providers, insurers and employers could use the segmentation to better communicate with and engage members of the various groups. For the benefit of the unfit and happy among its employee base, for example, a company could explain the financial incentives of various health options, showing how much of their own money consumers could save over time by participating in, say, a diabetes management program. Studying consumers’ health/wealth profile will have additional implications for many participants in the health-care industry.

Caroline Calkins directs research on consumer, technology and management trends for Diamond Management & Technology Consultants, based in Chicago. John Sviokla is vice chairman of Diamond and a former professor at Harvard Business School.

Five steps to building your personal leadership brand

You have a personal leadership brand. But do you have the right one?

A leadership brand conveys your identity and distinctiveness as a leader. If you have the wrong leadership brand for the position you have or the position you want, then your work is not having the impact it could.

What Health Consumers Want

Consumers of health care constitute a market that is as diverse as a market can be, yet the idea that companies might profit by segmenting customers to address their varied needs seems almost foreign to the health industry, despite the billions of dollars at stake.

How Bayan got its voice back

Bayan Telecommunications’ Tunde Fafunwa is very enthusiastic nowadays because the Lopez-controlled company has risen from its low point. And the source of his excitement is largely due to the recent introduction of Span, Bayan’s wireless landline service.

Winning: Managing shooting stars

Q: How far should I go to keep a star performer who has an offer to work at a competitor? Hymie Betesh, New York                 

A: Not as far as you’re probably considering, we imagine, given the panic that strikes most managers when a star threatens to shoot out the door.

Lighting the way

Dutch electronics and lighting giant Philips Electronics has been continuously doing business in the Philippines for the past 50 years.

In the name of the people

THIS time around, former Navy officer and neophyte Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV left no room for ambiguity.

In his 2003 debut at the Oakwood mutiny, then-Lt. Senior Grade Trillanes hemmed and hawed about his intentions.

Water Is Life

FOR corporate do-gooders, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is just the start. The new trend among large and well-established corporate organizations is to integrate sustainable-development programs—not just mere philanthropic activities—to their core businesses.

Give your team a challenge they can’t resist

It’s not easy pulling a group of diverse individuals together to work as a team. Barriers abound in the form of fierce territoriality, incentive systems that reward individual rather than collective achievement, and mistrust spawned by an acquisition, merger or major internal restructuring.

Improve your return on returns

Competitive pressures have forced many retailers and manufacturers to liberalize their returns policies in recent years and gladly accept for a refund just about anything customers regret having bought.

A staged solution to the catch-22

Companies launching two-sided platforms—businesses that connect two groups of users, as credit-card companies do—have often subsidized one group to get it to use the platform. This is a risky approach, because it requires a big upfront investment.

Ship shape

For an employee, a company-sponsored overseas trip could mean mostly fun, with, of course, some work in between. For a chief executive of a company, however, it would be the opposite, and most of the time the fun part takes place in between working or not at all.

Winning: Stay the course…especially if it’s a new one

Q: Sometimes companies need to change even when there is not a crisis forcing the issue. In such cases, how do you keep your people excited about a change initiative after its newness has worn off? Trevor Smith, Singapore

A: You have to stay excited yourself. And not just excited, but obsessed.

If I had a hammer

HASHIM squinted before pulling the trigger. Although the 19-year-old is used to holding Soviet-made AK-47 assault rifles in the deep jungles of Mindanao three years back, this particularly weapon was new to him.

Big failure, little dreams

CASTELLANA, Negros Occidental—It is already past noon and yet Edelyn Pineda is still lazing around Sitio Odiong here along with her little friends.

The Morning Meeting: Best-practice communication for executive teams

Does your company’s executive team struggle with chronic communication problems and a lack of shared accountability? Many times when my colleagues and I are called in to help out an organization, we find that these two core issues underlie their problems.

Lessons from the leaders of retail loss prevention

Preventing theft, damage and errors such as food spoilage has long been an unyielding and poorly understood problem for retailers. But a few companies stand out in their ability to limit losses, and if every retailer were as successful as they are, the sector could save billions of dollars annually—as much as $27 billion in the United States alone.

The Jock Correlation in business

WITH many sports headlines today trumpeting organizational and solvency issues with various teams and sports associations across the world, there is often an almost missionary zeal to bring to sports a more “business approach.”

Winning: Developing a successful succession plan

Q: What companies would you hold up as examples of succession planning done right? Robert Handfield, Raleigh, North Carolina 

A: It’s sad to say, but your question would be a heck of a lot easier to answer if you had asked for examples of succession planning done wrong. That trend is gaining such ground these days it’s alarming.

Accounting can be fun

People quick to dismiss accountants as the ultimate bean counters have definitely not run into the likes of Roberto Manabat and Emmanuel Bonoan, the dynamic duo that has redefined the business of accounting in the Philippines. Currently sitting at the helm of KPMG Manabat Sanagustin & Co., the Philippine affiliate of KPMG International, the pair has ably guided Philippine companies through the accounting labyrinth without getting in the way of their business activities.

‘I’ll stop exposés if they stop doing wrong’

Sen. Ping Lacson tells the Quijano de Manila forum why investigation is an essential Senate role 

(Excerpts from discussions of journalists with Sen. Panfilo Lacson at the Quijano de Manila Symposium, October 24, 2007, Cherry Blossoms Hotel, Manila. At the panel were Butch del Castillo and Inday Varona of Philippine Graphic magazine, Amado Macasaet of Malaya, Jimmy Gil of dzBB, columnist Lito Banayo and BusinessMirror Senate reporter Butch Fernandez.)

Idiot Box No More

WHERE life is tangled in knots and snarls in the marooned mountainous areas in Mindanao, 12-year-old Mel Velyn Escobar of Midsayap, a town in North Cotabato, finds hope in Knowledge Channel to pursue her education.

Coaching your team’s performance to the next level

Teams are the workhorses of today’s businesses, but they’re workhorses prone to many ailments, from open bickering and sabotage to resolute conflict avoidance. And even teams that generally plow ahead productively can be improved.

Break the paper jam in B2B payments

Electronic invoice and payment systems have been slow to catch on, even though they offer enormous promise for cost savings, speed and transparency in business-to-business transactions.