How to utilise marketing opportunities in a highly regulated environment : the veterinary industry

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The veterinary industry is operating in a highly regulated environment. Up till now these regulations prevented veterinarians to freely market veterinary services, especially professional services. Every business person in the biggest part of the world is subject to free-market economic pressures. However in the case of the professional, who is also a business person, these economic market-pressures could become very intense and unbalanced, and lead to what is called the “professional dilemma” (Du Preez, 2003: 8).Professional persons are governed by their respective codes of conduct. Those professionals who practice as entrepreneurs therefore need to be more business skilled and creative to successfully manage their businesses as they do not have the luxury of utilising the normal business strategies and options.The state of professionalism within the veterinary profession in South Africa in terms of entrepreneurship has been addressed in the past, but there is still a major gap in terms of providing business tools to managers in the veterinary industry. The biggest challenge in terms of the general business functions faced by veterinarians is the marketing function, thus the reason for this study. It is necessary that the highly regulated environments of professionals being understood. Therefore the research has been conducted by highlighting these environments.The researcher then continues to analyse the internal and external environment, client needs and customer profile in order to identify ways of optimising marketing opportunities.