The Right Approach

International heads of hospitals explain the strategy they opted for: source, geography or cluster approach.

Healthcare groups have adopted varied approaches to tap the burgeoning medical tourism market. The groups have opted for geographic approach, cluster approach or source approach or a melange of all. We spoke to various international marketing heads to understand the rationale behind the approach they adopted:

Benny Charles Daniel Head, International Business Manipal Health Enterprises

The approach that most growing hospitals in India adopt are geography based approach, whereby the individuals in team are lined up to select geographies to market and generate sales. This, in concept, does offer a better hold in the market, but the shortfall in this approach is the ability of individuals to handle multiple partners who require multiple deliverables to build on the relationships

The next approach that is being tested is individuals aligned to certain hospitals of the group and will be responsible to bring in sales for those units. Though this gives a better accountability, there will be a lot of duplication and competition among the group and this limits the scope of promoting the brand as an entity. This is called the cluster approach

There are a select hospitals that follow what I call as a source approach. This will be an approach where individual team members are aligned to a particular source or stream of revenue, thus helping us focus on specific deliverable for each source and to maximise sales and conversions. While each approach has its own merits and demerits, hospitals are trying their way that matches their business goals