Market Forces
Strategic Trends Impacting Senior Living Providers
Market Forces is a thoughtful analytical work for those who make decisions about the long-term strategies of their residential senior communities.
According to Jill J. Johnson’s informative trend analysis text Market Forces, the senior healthcare and residential facility market is changing more than most people know.
With many facilities for active seniors, assisted living homes, and nursing homes all competing to gain their market share before the “senior tsunami” hits, Johnson explains that nearby competition and services could impact how full a facility will become. She also asserts that most Baby Boomers will not be interested in senior living of any kind for many years, and says that providers need to thrive now before they consider expanding for a general increase in demand.
Blunt in addressing changes to what seniors can and cannot afford, with causes such as different support for children than past generations engaged in, the book’s grasp of trends is strong. It nods to people waiting much later to enter even active living facilities, and growing expectations for high-quality amenities and programming. Such trends, it says, could make launching a new facility a disastrous decision if it’s done without a sophisticated market analysis.
The book’s examples acknowledge the realities of changing demands for senior housing. Many of its contentions may be hard to accept, but the background information and research provided are credible supports for its points. Further, its core thesis is positive and hopeful: understanding one’s core value, it says, can help a facility to focus on its strengths and to stop wasting money with increased infrastructure when none is needed.
Insider jargon is balanced by laypeople’s terms, and the book’s tight organization ensures that the examples don’t stray far from the book’s core analytical points. The whole project is influenced by Johnson’s background in consulting; she has assisted various facilities who made decisions to address a perceived increase in demand, but who had to reverse course when they discovered that demand is actually going down. Her conclusions offset disappointing trends with their positive reminders of the value and importance of senior living work.
Rooted in technical details but focused on the broad strokes of the trends rather than numbers, this text is a quick overview of possibilities. Its scope makes it accessible to a wide range of stakeholders connected to senior living facilities—a limited target readership, but one that will find it to be a clear, thoughtful resource full of insights that can help them to avoid costly mistakes. Its charts and extended case studies are useful and make its takeaways clear.
Market Forces is a thoughtful analytical work for those who make decisions about the long-term strategies of their residential senior communities.
Reviewed by
Laura Leavitt
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
