Avishek SIngh
Daycare hospitals have come up as a new breed of hospital format mushrooming in the treatment sector. The specialised services available at these centres, personal attention are few of the features that are attracting huge masses towards this format. 27% of deaths happen in India due to untimely and improper medical attention. In a scenario like this, the daycare as concept witnesses huge demand and growth opportunity. A study revolving around the same was conducted where the client wanted a Location Strategy for an upcoming chain of Day Care Hospital in Mumbai.
Location is one important aspect, considering the vitality of hospitals and its accessibility to the public. Besides, being a new format of medical treatment, market penetration as a business model is sought after, especially competing against big conventional players in the business.
The client wanted to select one location out of 16 shortlisted locations and wanted to understand the competitive landscape and market dynamics in the 16 areas.
The methodology applied was two-fold. Firstly, identifying three key parameters for decision-making process-Demographics, Competition and Availability of Surgeons; these were further broken down into sub-parameters. Secondly, creating a model based on Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to give weightage to each parameter and to give each locality a rating for all sub-parameters. The parameter deciding was an important stage at the beginning of the analysis as it would be directly projecting the importance of positioning a daycare in a particular area. Also, subfactors like demand, enablers, competition were taken into consideration and each locality was given a rating out of 5, based on which a composite score was calculated for each locality and according to that it would be feasible for the client to finalize the location as per his needs. Based on the parameters, the best location was selected. Micro-analysis was conducted on the top 3 properties available in the area to select the most appropriate location and qualitative interviews were done with surgeons and other experts in the selected locality.
The basic need for the client would revolve around scaling the daycare format business line in one of the 16 selected areas and as there is already a calculated need for such concept, harnessing the opportunity would be important. Also, a competitor analysis was done on the conventional hospital formats and what differentiation is services could be added in the format. Additionally, we understood the customer satisfaction based on the key parameters to give a perspective on the medical consumer preferences and simultaneously benchmarked it against the industry standards. Also, keeping in touch with the legal framework, considering it is the medical sector is of utmost importance.
The client has finalized the property in the recommended area and looking to start the operations in the next couple of months. A database of surgeons and hospitals was also given to the client as a part of the exercise.
