France Telecom Health Care Initiative

The client, a multinational telecommunications player based in France, Orange, wanted to enter the digital healthcare space through its healthcare division, Orange Healthcare. The company’s motivation to enter the e-health arose from survey results that pointed to France lagging in the digital healthcare space compared to other European countries and hence wanted to develop a digital market strategy.

First, the brand’s target customer segments were identified to determine the variety and range of products for an offering. There were three customer types that Orange wanted to target; patients, health providers and senior citizens. The next step was to look at the in-demand products in the digital healthcare segment. Looking at the demand side factors, we identified three key product segments for these customers; Remote monitoring solutions for immediate onset diseases such as diabetes and cardiac problems, virtual patient management system to help health service providers manage online appointments, and increased connectivity through integrated patient databases across hospitals in France.

The next logical step was to determine the impacts of these products on the working of the industry. The qualitative impacts were four-fold; convenient patient management to prevent unnecessary patient hospitalization and clinic visits to free up beds for more pressing conditions, reduced cost of periodic treatment of diseases like diabetes by reducing the number of hospital visits. Reduced cost of patient management systems nationwide through integration of databases and improve accessibility of health care services round the clock, through digital channels. The key product among these was the remote disease monitoring solution for cardiac patients, offering innovative and new ideas to boost the digital healthcare industry.

Following this, we sized the growth potential in the French Market and the European market. We estimated the CAGR of the French healthcare industry at 5% and the market size for digital healthcare services at €500 million. The potential in Europe was much higher with the e-health industry worth €450 Billion in Europe. The expected revenue for France Telecom (Orange) was estimated at €500 million in the year 2010, solely from e-services. We also developed a growth model for Orange which was based on two facets: product innovation like that observed in the case of disease monitoring and response and new product development to provide easier access to healthcare for a larger customer base.

Following our findings and recommendations, the group planned to start e-health services with the pillars of innovative products and affordable services in France and expand to other European Markets in the next few years.

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