2019 Strategic Plan

Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic

Kayla Babcock, Laney Gervase, Myah Henry, Hudson Huth, Josiah Leuck
BATTLE GROUND VETERINARY CLINIC | 625 HARRISON STREET; WEST LAFAYETTE, IN 47906
BGVC Strategic Plan 2019

Table of Contents

Overview ...............................................................................................................2
History of the Company ......................................................................................3
Mission Statement ...............................................................................................4
Vision and Patient Promise ................................................................................4
Guiding Principles ...............................................................................................4
SWOT Analysis .....................................................................................................5
Strengths .............................................................................................................5
Weaknesses .........................................................................................................5
Opportunities .......................................................................................................6
Threats ................................................................................................................6
Strategic Goals .....................................................................................................8
Strategic Goal 1: Raising EBITDA margin to 12% ................................................8
Strategic Goal 2: Client Growth ......................................................................... 10
Strategic Goal Three: Training Staff .................................................................. 13
Strategic Goal Four: Retaining Permanent Staff ................................................ 14
Performance Goals and Evaluation ................................................................. 15
Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 15
Appendix ............................................................................................................. 16

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BGVC Strategic Plan 2019

Overview

Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic (BGVC) serves hundreds of patients on a weekly basis, offering
traditional medical practices, such as spay and neuter, vaccinations, regular check-ups, and
surgery. Additionally, BGVC prides themselves upon their focus on alternative medical solutions
to veterinary care. BGVC offers animal acupuncture, chiropractic care, rehabilitation, and are
pursuing developing an approach to prosthetics.
By defining four strategic goals to address, Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic plans to utilize the
solutions and action plans as clarified in this strategic plan in order to positively benefit the
organization.

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BGVC Strategic Plan 2019

History of the Company

Dr. Paul Wittke opened Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic in 2001. It has always been a small
animal clinic operating with one full-time and one part-time veterinarian. Since the clinic has
opened, it has met the basic care needs of its clients’ pets while also offering alternative and
integrative options.
The clinic performs or offers: surgeries, acupuncture, chiropractic, dentistry, radiography,
euthanasia, laser therapy, herbal medicines, ultrasound, video otoscopy, and boarding. In many
ways, these alternative medicines are important to BGVC’s continued success, allowing the
clinic to differentiate itself from those in Lafayette.
This year, in July of 2018, another full time veterinarian was hired and one of BGVC’s full time
registered veterinary technicians (RVT) became a certified massage and rehabilitation therapist.
There are now two full-time doctors, one part-time doctor, and a rehab therapist. A recent
addition to BGVC’s practice is canine rehabilitation, which has quickly blossomed into a
keystone of the clinic’s medical specialties.

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BGVC Strategic Plan 2019

Mission Statement

Our mission is to be a responsible team united in providing the highest quality veterinary care,
fostering a strong relationship with our clients, and embracing several individualized avenues of
medical care for our animal friends.

Vision and Patient Promise

To celebrate and strengthen the precious human- animal bond.

To maintain a modern, technologically advanced facility.
To promote healing through holistic care and rehabilitation.
To treat every client as we would treat a family member.

Guiding Principles

C-CARE: Compassion, Comfort, Advocacy, Respect, Equality

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SWOT Analysis
The full SWOT Analysis can be found in Appendix 1

Strengths
 Competition among veterinary care providers in West Lafayette, IN is strong. Battle
Ground Veterinary Clinic has defined the strengths of their organization in order to set them
apart from the competition.

 One strength of BGVC lies in the dedication of the clinic’s small staff. The staff is
dedicated to their job, caring for their furry patients and their human families, while having a
strong rapport among each other. Additionally, the clinic has a small staff which benefits the
organization by facilitating good communication within the organization and to clients, fewer
instances of drama dividing the staff, and having a “personal feel” when interacting with clients
and the general public.

 BGVC has two full-time veterinarians which allows the clinic to accept new patients.
Having an excellent staff fosters a competitive advantage over other local veterinary clinics
because when clients feel cared for by the staff, they are more likely to remain loyal to that
organization. Clients value this interpersonal relationship because they will begin to trust these
staff members and will choose them to care for their pets over another competing business.

 BGVC has identified that they are very critical when hiring additional staff members,
often vetting them through intense interviews with current staff. The clinic does this in order to
ensure that the candidate is a good fit in the culture of the organization.

 Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic is the only veterinary clinic in the area to offer
alternative medicine to their animal clients. Many clients enjoy the options that these alternative
medicines offer. BGVC will continue to offer alternative medical care such as acupuncture and
chiropractic rehabilitation procedures, and the clinic will look to adopt new methods to serve
client needs. Along with offering alternative medical care, Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic is
actively working towards developing prosthetics in order to set them apart from the competition
in the local arena.

Weaknesses
 The location of the clinic is a major factor that inhibits growth. BGVC is far from the
downtown Lafayette area, on a road that does not see much traffic. The clinic is unable to reach a
large number of potential clients due to their business being quartered out of town.

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 Additionally, the name of the business itself indicates that they are in a different city than
the majority of their clients. This means that potential clients may not patronize the organization
because they learn upon first impression that the clinic is not located within driving distance.

 Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic prides itself in its excellent staff, however having a small
staff can also have a negative impact on doing business. Leaves of absences create large staffing
issues. Cross training employees to remedy this problem proves to be expensive and consumes a
significant amount of time so they have not taken the initiative yet. Having a small staff can also
inhibit the number of appointments taken per day. As aforementioned, BGVC only has two
veterinarians which proves to be a problem when expanding the volume of clients they see per
day.

 Hiring and retaining part-time staff is an additional weakness. At the clinic there is a
large supply of labor intensive jobs and these jobs are usually filled by college students from
local Purdue University. College students are difficult to schedule because have other
commitments which results in high turnover of these part-time employees and a high cost of
training and re-training employees when a new member is hired. Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic
hires frequently because of the scheduling conflicts which decreases productivity and is very
expensive.

 Pay at BGVC is not extremely competitive. The cost of living in Indiana, especially
Lafayette is not remarkably high, so competitive wages are not always a priority. Additionally,
funds that are not being used to provide employees with a competitive wage may be used for
innovation to the products they offer, such as prosthetics and rehabilitative care. This may be a
reason for the high turnover among college students and registered veterinary technicians
(RVTs).

Opportunities
 The number of pet owners in Lafayette and surrounding areas is unlikely to decrease.
This means that there will always be a steady demand for veterinary care. These individuals are
also likely to explore other avenues of veterinary care for their pet, such as rehabilitation,
chiropractic, and acupuncture, which is the area in which BGVC prides themselves upon.

 The clients who receive veterinary care at Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic often use
word of mouth marketing to “spread the word” about the care they received and this can provide
an opportunity for the clinic to grow in their clientele.

Threats
 One threat to BGVC is the competition that exists among veterinary clinics and hospitals
within the West Lafayette/Lafayette community. There are over 10 clinics/hospitals within a 20
mile radius of the cities which offers potential client’s freedom to choose clinics based on
marketing strategies, cost, and products offered. BGVC is at a disadvantage in terms of location

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because they are located further out of town as opposed to other clinics and hospitals which are,
in some cases located near the main highways and streets that flow through town.

 Spay-neuter clinics in the area offer low-cost alternatives to veterinary clinics such as
BGVC which is an added competitive aspect that negatively affects BGVCs ability to gain new
clients. These spay-neuter clinics offer prices so low to customers that it is impossible to
compete. However, there are no clinics in the area that offer alternative medicine or
rehabilitation care, which gives an advantage to Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic.

 Online pharmacies pose a pricing threat to BGVC for pet pharmaceuticals. These online
shopfronts, such as 1800petmeds.com and chewy.com, offer extremely low prices and shipping
to the customer’s door. Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic cannot compete with the extremely low
prices of these online stores, often times lower than the clinic’s cost for the medication.

 An overarching threat to all veterinary care providers is that the economy is not strong
enough that people feel confident in investing a significant amount of money into their pet’s
care. This means that customers will seek out lower cost alternatives, like spay-neuter clinics and
other pop-up clinics that can offer lower prices for veterinary care.

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BGVC Strategic Plan 2019

Strategic Goals

Strategic Goal 1: Raising EBITDA margin to 12%

Maintaining EBITDA above 10% is a core indicator of success and ability to safely grow and improve
services, with a stretch goal of 14% peak.

Strategies
1. Raise costs of services by 6% over two years: In application raise services where there is
competitive edge. For instance rehab and surgery prices have customers that are less
likely to be able to choose another source of the required service. When raising the prices
be sure track customer retention and Satisfaction.

2. Evaluate online store sales strategy to address concerns of being unable to compete with
other online price: One idea worth considering is partnering with an online provider.
PetCo has an affiliate program that when a purchase is made using an affiliate link that up
to 10% of the sale are given back as commissions. Let PetCo worry about online price
competition, and reallocate money from maintaining the online store to expanding more
profitable services. From a brief comparison from three products from PetCo and Battle
Ground Veterinary Clinics’ online stores. Two of the three products PetCo had a price
about $10 lower than BGVC, the products were Heartgard plus Dog Chews and NexGard
Chewables for dogs. However the third product, Trifexis tablets for dogs, was not
available on PetCo’s online store. A partnership with PetCo and their online store would
likely increase the need for a refreshed website.

3. Expand services with higher profit margins, expanding rehabilitation and surgery market
services strengthens BGVC position in the lafayette market. Growth of profitable sectors
is to be 3% more than increase in other services with a stretch of increasing 7%. The
metrics to be observed should be average growth of each profit center compared the
growth of the focus sector. Before starting focused expansion, an internal SWOT
assessment of the profit center should be performed to inform future action. In this case
awareness of rehabilitation services is likely going to limit growth. Focused expansion
would have to put resources into developing public awareness of the service as well as
professional awareness to capitalize on recommendations from other clinics in the area.

4. Reducing Operating Expenses: Reducing fixed costs of a company is a great way to

improve profitability with minimal impact on client satisfaction. One of the largest uses
of energy for a building comes from lighting; one strategy to reduce overall lighting cost
is to switch to LED light bulbs. Using an online savings calculator assuming
conservatively 60 hours of light usage a week and 100 lamps. Changing from typical
incandescent bulbs to LED lamps saved a project $150 dollars a month after a $150 in
upfront bulb costs. However if converting from fluorescent tubes to LED tubes the
savings were not as significant. In this case 50 lamps were assumed maintaining 60
hours of usage weekly. The savings were estimated to be $19 per month with a breakeven
point about seven months out. Duke energy has an online store with discounted energy

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efficient bulbs. Buying from them would likely improve the projected time to break even
since the cost of new lamps was sourced from Menards online site.

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BGVC Strategic Plan 2019

Strategic Goal 2: Client Growth

Engaging with new clientele in order to reach yearly client growth goals. Year-over-year client growth
should reach 5%, with a stretch goal of 10%.

Securing new accounts is essential to operations at Battle Grounds Veterinary Clinic. Bringing in
new clientele allows for expansion of services (such as rehabilitation) and can provide the
resources necessary to hire additional staff. To bring in new clients, BGVC relies primarily on
word-of-mouth marketing from returning clients; in addition, the clinic utilizes a Facebook page,
Yellowpages, Google Ads, and a Purdue University partnership to reach wider audiences. In the
past, BGVC has set a goal of 6% yearly client growth. This strategic plan calls for a consistent
5% growth per year, a number that should be attainable. A stretch goal of 10% client growth,
however, will accelerate the revenue growth of the clinic and allow it to expand upon the unique
services that it offers.

Strategies
1. Implement new marketing strategies: In the past, Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic has relied
primarily on word-of-mouth marketing to bring in new clients. This plan looks to expand on
the marketing and advertising power of BGVC by implementing a variety of new strategies.
Each of these strategies has the potential to reach different customer demographics and bring
in different clients to BGVC.

1.1. Newsletters
Newsletters can be sent to returning customers to keep them informed about the new
programs and activities at Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic. While these are primarily
useful for retaining customers, newsletters will increase the available literature on
BGVC.

1.2. Pamphlets and Handbills

Pamphlets and handbills are small marketing materials, typically a single page or card
that contain basic information about the clinic. It would be useful to create a few
pamphlets or handbills to keep on hand and distribute at conventions, community events,
to area realtors, or other places.

1.3. Social Media

Social media is a premier medium for advertising a business. Utilizing a variety of
platforms, a business can give followers real-time updates. These followers are typically
the most important demographic to advertise to because they have already shown interest
in the clinic.

To maximize the benefit of social media platforms, it is important to post consistently;

doing so will increase the number of followers and the engagement they have with the
page. Beyond posting, it is also important to respond to users who comment directly at
BGVC or mention the clinic; doing so helps to curate discussion about the clinic. It can
also be useful to encourage staff to interact with the business social media pages,
increasing engagement in an organic way. Below are the three most popular social media
sites.

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BGVC Strategic Plan 2019

1.3.1. Facebook
Facebook is the most widely used social media site today, with 2.2 billion monthly
users. Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic already manages a Facebook page as the
primary method of communicating with its clients. Facebook is a great platform for
keeping followers up to date about the happenings at BGVC, in a similar way that a
newsletter does.

1.3.2. Instagram
Instagram is the second largest social media site today, with 1.1 billion monthly users.
Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic has also created an Instagram page, but has yet to
make any posts. Instagram is a less formal medium than Facebook and offers a
chance to help build the BGVC brand. As a veterinary clinic, BGVC has access to
some of the most popular and accessible Instagram content, animals!

1.3.3. Twitter
Twitter is the most third largest social media site in the U.S., with 330 million
monthly users. BGVC does not maintain a Twitter Page. Twitter is the most fast-
paced of the social media sites, allowing only very short posts. Twitter is a great
platform to communicate with individuals in real-time.

1.4. Webads
Webads are some of the best ways to target advertisements at very specific
demographics. Without a doubt, webads have become one of the most efficient modes of
advertising, but can be difficult to manage for a small business. Below are two services
that Google offers.

1.4.1. Google AdWords (Google Ads)

Google AdWords is the most potentially powerful advertising medium available
online. These are the advertisements that show up on top of Google Search,
depending on keyword. The cost and effectiveness of Google AdWords varies, but
with enough time and expertise can be extremely beneficial.

1.4.2. Google Display Ads

Google Display Ads show up on webpages and can, like AdWords, be targeted
toward specific audiences. To utilize these Display Ads most effectively, it is
important to track what other websites the BGVC site visitors frequent (this can be
done through cookies). These Ads can be very targeted, appearing only on 5-10
websites, helping save on cost while making sure the ads are impactful.

2. A focus on consistent website updates: The Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic’s Website is
often times the first point of contact between potential clients and the clinic. New clients will
come to the website to find information about services the clinic offers, hours of operation,
and to understand the values of the clinic. With this in mind, it is paramount that the website
be kept up-to-date. Biweekly or monthly updates to the website should be considered in order
to make sure that new clients have the most accurate clinic information available.

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Additionally, a frequently updated website shows up more in search engines, increasing page
views.

3. Promote customer advocacy through customer questionnaires: Questionnaires can help find
the gaps and successes in the customer experience at BGVC. Offering a short survey at the
clinic or on the BGVC website is a quick way to gauge customer satisfaction and can reveal
oversights in the operating procedures at BGVC. Customers are often very receptive to this
form of surveying, especially those customers who frequent the clinic. Questions should be
both quantitative—how frequently do you come to the clinic?—and qualitative—have you
enjoyed your experience at the clinic?

4. Continue forming relationships with local clinics to increase referral rate: Referring
customers to other clinics is an important practice at all veterinary clinics. It ensures that
clients receive the absolute best care for their animals, even when the home clinic may not be
able to provide that care. As Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic continues to expand its unique
services, such as rehabilitation, it will be very important to maintain and grow the clinic’s
referral network. Clients who come to the clinic for more specialized care may decide to
come back after seeing the many advantages that BGVC offers.

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Strategic Goal Three: Training Staff

Implementing a Co-Operative program for students as well as cross-training the staff will set up BGVC
for long-term success.

The training of staff is critical to the long-term success of any business. Battle Ground
Veterinary Clinic is no exception. As the competition among veterinary care providers continues
to rise in West Lafayette, Indiana, customer service is what sets apart the Battle Ground
Veterinary Clinic. The staff is known for being dedicated to their jobs, hardworking, trustworthy,
and being very close to one another. However, having a small staff is not always an advantage
due to the turnover rate of student employees, unexpected illnesses, and maternity leaves. Hiring
staff for the Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic mainly occurs one to two times a year and it is very
time consuming and can cost a lot of money.

Strategies
1. Implementing a Co-Operative program for students: A Co-Operative program offers
numerous benefits for students looking to gain real-world experience before they
graduate. In addition to gaining anywhere from 12-22 months of practical experience
prior to graduation it will also greatly benefit the Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic.
Creating a Co-Operative program would greatly reduce the turnover rate in student
employees because they would be committed to a certain period of time in working with
the Veterinary clinic. Typical Co-Operative programs have anywhere from three to five
sessions and one session being an entire semester of the student working with the Battle
Ground Veterinary Clinic. By having a Co-Operative program in the Battle Ground
Veterinary Clinic it will attract pre-veterinary and veterinary technician students from
Purdue University. This is an advantage to the Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic because it
attracts animal loving students rather than people in it only for the money.

2. Increase cross-training efficiency: Cross-Training offers multiple benefits to businesses

such as reducing costs by leveraging internal talent, saving productivity when employees
are absent, and boosting motivation in employees career growth. One effective way to
implement cross-training is to do so when the business first hires a new employee. A
rotational method can be used when training the new employee such as having the new
employee do one job for a week then the next week have them shadow a different job.
Cross training might take a little more time but in the end it is proved to be more efficient
when employees are gone due to an illness.

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Strategic Goal Four: Retaining Permanent Staff

Employee retention is a problem at Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic. Hiring new staff is costly
and time consuming for management and other staff who are required to train the new employee.
Typically, BGVC looks to hire new staff twice a year.

Strategies
1. Employee surveying: In order to increase retention Battle ground should consider asking
employees what they like most about the job and what they would like to change. This
will help them to get an idea of what employees value and what they dislike and they can
adapt accordingly. Employees are the people who keep the business up and running,
keeping them happy and listening to their needs is what will keep these employees within
the company.

2. Increase amount of staff: Battle Ground Veterinary clinic can also increase the amount of
permanent staff in order to reduce retention, the lack of employees puts more work on the
employees that they do have. Increasing the amount of employees at the clinic will help
divide the work and in turn make employees happy. This will also help when employees
need to take sick days or vacation. In order to increase permanent positions they can also
hire more people who are not students or fresh out of college.

3. Promote volunteer positions: Another way to solve the problem of the employee shortage
is to offer volunteer positions, there are many students in the West Lafayette area who
need volunteer hours and that are very passionate about animals. These students would be
more than happy to get those hours in while doing something they love. The service
hours can consist of playing with the animals and cleaning up and doing small tasks that
the regular staff would normally have to do. This will decrease the workload of current
employees and offer a fun volunteer experience to students in the area that need it. Battle
Ground has college students on their staff, many times these students are looking to just
start out somewhere. Battle Ground needs to look for people who are just as passionate
about where they work as they are for the work that they are doing. Once they do this and
find people who want to work there, build lasting relationships, and better the facility as a
whole they will see the turnover rates decrease.

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Performance Goals and Evaluation

Strategic Performance Metrics Performance Target

Goal
1. EBITDA Increasing Cost of Services
Margin
to 12%
Evaluate Online Store Platform
Expand Profitable Sectors (PS)
Reduce Operating Expense by
Focusing On Building Efficiency
2. Client Yearly New Customer MRR % =
Growth 𝑅𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑢𝑒 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑁𝑒𝑤 𝐶𝑢𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑠
𝑅𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑢𝑒 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑅𝑒𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐶𝑢𝑠𝑟𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑠
Social Media Engagement
3. Training Co-Operative Program for the students
Staff
Customer Satisfaction, Customer
Retention,
If partnership with PetCo is projected
to be beneficial, apply.
PS should have growth 3% higher
than average growth, with 7% as
stretch
MRR of 5%
Stretch Goal 10%
Average of one post per day on two
unique social media sites
Starting with one position if
successful expanding it to two

Cross-Training the Staff For BGVC to become the most

efficient when staff members are
absent it is crucial to cross-train all
staff members
4. Increasing number of permanent staff Increase permanent staff by 50% in
Retaining the next 2 years
Staff
Improve employee satisfaction survey employees and implement at
least 30% of the recommended
improvements

Conclusion

This document has laid out a holistic strategic plan for Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic. Building
from the clinic’s most central values, this plan focusses on completing four Strategic Goals and
gives a number of strategies to do so. We hope that the Battle Ground Veterinary Clinic will be
able to utilize a number of components of this plan to help their organization prosper over the
next 5 years.

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Appendix
Appendix 1: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats
Analysis
Strengths
- Dedicated staff, devoted to caring for patients.
- Good communication with clients.
- Accepts new clients due to having two
veterinarians.
- Small staff means good work- culture fit.
- Offers alternative medical care such as
rehabilitation, acupuncture, chiropractic care.
- Actively working towards offering prosthetics
for their clients.
Opportunities
- Constant demand for animal health care.
- Offering many different types of animal care.
- Individualizes and customized care plan
- Opportunity for the rehabilitation
practice to grow.
- Word of mouth marketing by loyal
clients.
- Major marketing opportunities for
spreading the word about different types of
care.
Weaknesses
- Location is not easy to access for many in
the community.
- Difficulty distinguishing between being a
large or small animal hospital or clinic.
- Lack of marketing/ signage.
- Absences create staffing issues.
- Cross-training is expensive and time-
consuming.
- Appointments are restricted due to small
staff.
- Retaining part-time employees (students).
- Pay not competitive due to innovation of
products offered.
Threats
- Competition that exists in the local
community.
- Spay-neuter clinics offer low-cost
alternatives
- Online pharmacies offer
medications at a lower cost.
- Economy is not strong; people
willing to spend less money on pet care.
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