Medicosnext
Many entrepreneurs and healthcare businesses have the ambition to ramp up services across borders. Choice of the country is the initial and most important step as a foundation to this dream, and quite vital for the business and its management team. Spanning from Nigeria to Nepal, each country has its own distinct makeup of social, demographic, economic, financial, regulatory, and political environment, and variant culture, resources, and global outlook.
Due diligence should consist of evaluation of market size, opportunity, existence of supply chain, technology, growth rate, competitive environment, local infrastructure, and relevant human resources available. Setting up of the business also requires understanding of commonly used local business practices, dollar availability and currency valuation, repatriation of profits mechanism, finance and audit requirements, taxation, bilateral trade agreements, and healthcare compliances. Anyone stepping into a foreign business environment must take into consideration the laws, rules, and healthcare regulations of the host country, and adhere to all compliances for making a hassle-free and impactful entry.
The various entry strategy routes available can be M & A-fuelled expansion, export of services, licensing your brand, managing a department of a local hospital, franchising, joint venture with local entities, and 100% ownership projects, etc.
Nepal opportunity
Nepal is on its path to becoming an important healthcare destination for its own people. Hospitals and diagnostic centers are adopting the latest technologies, including, but not limited to, genetics, molecular testing, organ transplants, etc. Various business alliance models and relationship matrix, including franchising models and hub-and-spokes models are venturing out.
In recent years, there is increased focus on healthcare by the government, too, especially in terms of policy making and improving access. Guidelines have been formed by regulatory bodies like National Public Health Laboratory (NPHL) for licensing, categorization of laboratories, and monitoring quality. Similar guidelines for running clinics and healthcare establishments have also been framed by the authorities. This presents an opportunity for organized and quality healthcare providers to enter the market, function, and deliver quality services. Along with growth of the private healthcare sector in Nepal, there is equal opportunity for the medical equipment and consumables sector, which is serviced largely through imports from India, China, and other countries.
There is increased awareness of terms like medical tourism, artificial intelligence, digital marketing, and electronic medical records, resulting in people venturing into such businesses specific to healthcare. This has resulted in augmentation of the private sector in terms of private investments, service delivery models, and technology embracement by the providers.
The marketing environment
Healthcare companies essentially need to keep the patient at the center and enfold all services around their needs. This might require new modeling of marketing mix and technology to develop the service offering of the company. The external marketing environment components like social, demographic, political, legal, etc., need to be considered carefully by the new entrant. With respect to healthcare, another important variable is the payer system (insurers) analysis, as this has profound impact on the way the business operates in the country. In a foreign land, the healthcare marketing manager can better attempt to create effective marketing mix, rather than influencing environmental variables.
It might be easier to manage usual marketing mix of 4Ps (product, place, price, promotion) or 7 Ps (as in services marketing), rather than persisting with uncontrollable variables or the external environment.
Some of the external marketing environment factors that need attention include:
• Social factors, which include, but are not limited to, the cultural values and lifestyle
• Demographic factors are important, as this is a study of people’s statistics
• Economic factors include study of disposable income, purchasing power, etc.
• Political and legal factors
• Competitive environment
Following few pointers may be considered while drafting the new country marketing mix, keeping above factors in mind:
• Offering good systems around patient care and clinical outcomes. Concept of prevention and wellness are general enablers for any healthcare receptive market.
• Community interactions through OPD camps can be collaborative to society. This must include means for information sharing and educating the public.
• Demographical studies can help to offer better solutions, knowing that a geriatric population exists may help you to innovate packages around it.
• Understanding the purchasing power and inflation trends of the country may help the company to device pricing strategy for the country.
• Innovations must be key component of the strategy; the company might have to look at healthcare delivery beyond healthcare institutions.
• Capacity development through training local talent is important in multiple aspects.
• Adoption of new-age medical technologies helps in establishing presence and beat competition, eventually gaining market share.
In general, the global marketers should avoid indiscriminate standardization of offerings, services, pricing, and same communication taken from headquarter country. It should have flexibility to adopt and execute geographic-specific marketing actions. The company should encourage local managers to develop ideas for regional use, with guidance from corporate headquarter, implementing the “think globally, act locally” concept.
Successful venture in overseas healthcare happens when the business is patient-centric, quality of care exists, local capacity development and marketing variables are taken care of, and the company adopts balance between local entity and parent company while running the business.
