What was the main line of business for Athena at the time?

Athena health started out as a passion for changing the business of healthcare. Cofounder Todd Park couldn't believe the monthly cost of health insurance (Bush, 2015) and developed a business plan with Bush at Harvard Business School. Inspired by Bush's wife, a midwife-in-training, Athena purchased an obstetrics practice that incorporated preventative medicine and education in addition to birthing services. They soon realized the struggle of owning a private physician practice. They had numerous insurance payment delays resulting in cash flow growth "by only 10%" (Chakravorti, 2010). From physical clinics, Bush and Park transformed their original business model to a platform supporting electronic medical records. Athena helped disrupt healthcare on the backend by allowing physicians to focus on healthcare, not practice management.

Why do you think the company's brand awareness was so low?

Athena's brand awareness was low due to several reasons. For example, they had several marketing issues where they did not clearly market the company and the company's brand awareness did not meet expectations. Only 19% of referring doctors were aware of Athena (Chakravorti, 2010). Most doctors do not know who Athena is and do not realize that billing and medical records can be online. Other obstacles include getting a meeting with the offices because so many companies are trying to pitch their product to them. The physicians are not the ones that are buying the product for the office. Instead, this is often the role of practice and/or billing managers.

What was unique about Athena's way of doing business with physician practices? Who was their primary target and why?

Athena is unique in their way of doing business with physician practices as they were internet based not paper-based. Athena provided everything a physician practice needed to use its web-based serviceincluding computer hardware. "We provided the computers, the printers, the people, a week of training and set-upeverything," said Bush (Chaktravorti, 2010). Athena charged no implementation or up-front fees for the service; instead, the company received on average 3% of each physician practice's revenue on an ongoing basis for as long as the practice used Athena's service (Chakravorti 2010).

Athena's primary target is the doctor or physician who can get time in their day back by someone else doing the paperwork and insurance claims. While this individual is not always the person who is making the financial decision, they are managing operational decisions. Athena needs to show the cost-benefit analysis of switching to AthenaNet. Their ultimate argument is that their product will free up their customer's time resulting in more revenue.

What do you see as the weak points of Athena Clinicals? What are the strengths?

Strengths

1. Designed to help practices develop and maintain EHR for their patients
2. Allowed physicians to create up-to-date and accurate online patient clinical records designed to improve administrative workflow
3. Had a niche that offered proprietary web-based software
4. The passage of the HITECH Act allowed for the expansion of the company
5. Collector added to its success
6. Aetna community would allow them to receive 100% payment for services but put off 50% of the value.
7. Doctors don't like vendors, but once they become customers, they tend to love vendors.

Weaknesses

1. Competitors had more significant financial and technological resources.
2. Fees overtime were higher
3. Relationships with channel partners were complicated
4. Athena's exclusive contracts prevented it from entering into similar agreements with other distributors.
5. Employees are fired for not getting into enough meetings
6. Prospective clients were concerned about patient privacy
7. The rapid growth in new customers led to the inability to support existing customers
8. Customer satisfaction started trending down
9. Marketing was the company's biggest challenge Based on the provided information as a consultant answer the following questions

• If you were to give them advice for strategic development, what areas would you suggest for them to expand into?
• What could be done about the low brand awareness?
• Would you invest in the company if they approached you?