Pioneering the distribution model for medical assistance business
“This industry needs a distribution model,” says Abhik Moitra, the man behind HBG Medical Assistance, a five-year-old company, which has undoubtedly become one of the most famous medical travel and medical assistance companies of India. His passion for his work comes through very clearly while he speaks about the future of the medical tourism industry in India.
Moitra says, “ If you see industries like FMCG or consumer durables, their whole business is dependent on how fast they can reach to the consumer. From a factory in Himachal Pradesh to a household in Chennai, FMCG companies have built a successful distribution model. They work through the clearing and forwarding agents to distributors from distributors to retailers and retailers to consumers, in a most effective way.”
The question, however, remains that is it possible to do so within the medical tourism industry? Can we create similar chain in the medical tourism industry? Moitra, having a background in FMCG and banking, is confident and says that it is possible. “We at HBG have done it,” he answers affirmatively. “We have created country-specific distribution for our services and we have well defined their roles. The model has big advantages; It helps us to connect better with our retailers, namely those people who connect with patients more often than us. It helps us to communicate better with these referral points and thus derive better business from them,” says Moitra.
The obvious question that pops up is whether this model is relevant to hospitals for which each and every referral point is important? How secure is their business, if hospitals stop looking into the markets directly and remain dependent on a distributor to do the job?
Moitra answers, “It is not a matter of mere dependence. It is a practice of making your distribution chain work. Making them do what you do and making them do in a much larger fashion, simply because their reach will be much larger. We are not saying that hospitals should stop promoting themselves, but rather should do it through the distribution chain.”
When a hospital personnel visits another country, he may only have limited number of days with him. He may still need to do follow ups with potential clients but that may happen only after weeks or months when he returns. Instead, he can make his distributors do the follow ups. Thus, he will be building business for himself and also for his distributin partner. The hospital personnel can work on strategic relationships, look into marketing initiatives and instead spend time in managing the existing relationships and continue to create more retail presence. Thereby he, will be maximising the returns from his visit, minimise costs and create a deeper brand presence.
When asked on what will be the role of companies like HBG in this larger distribution game, Nandita Gupta, Co-Founder HBG Medical Assistance says, “We will play the role of ‘A Shoppers Stop’ or ‘A Home Store”. Today’s consumers wants choices. They may not want just to take opinion from one hospital and travel. They want to understand the strengths of each hospital and each doctor to compare. We will provide them with those choices under one roof, thereby extending the distribution concept. As we will have access to a strong distribution set up already, the hospitals will be left with the only effort of using our already created network.”
Gupta continues, “Currently, we are promoting all major brands and at the same time we are competing with them directly. We are also competing with other medical travel companies and companies promoting other destinations. With distribution model in place, our focus will change towards adding value to the consumers travelling. We will stop competing directly with hospital brands that we promote, instead we will focus more on acquiring more business for us and for the hospital brands.”
Moitra adds.” Currently, as the hospitals scout for new referral points, they lose focus from the old and the strong ones. As these strong ones are those which are wanted by most of other hospital brands, with less importance given to them, they are lured to the next hospital. Thus, even if a hospital may be getting new partners to work with, with the loss of old partners, the growth rate of business remains retarded.”
Gupta, on being asked on how practical this is to implement, says, “HBG is known for creating trends. It has been contributing a lot to the industry by providing consumer insights, geographical knowledge and more importantly trained manpower. We are sure, that in days to come, the industry will understand the importance of organising itself. The change has already begun.”