ALL medical providers in the industry are identifying themselves as the best hospital, best doctors, having latest technology, offering best prices, best location, best, best, best… This has led to limited market differentiators between medical providers as all are claiming to be the best in what they do from their point of view. No one is really evaluating their environment from their customers and competitions point of view.

The medical tourism industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world today. As application of medical tourism grow, the market potential increases exponentially, which also means that there is cut throat competition. The promise and potential is extremely high and in order to compete in this emerging market, medical centers have to identify and analyze their competition as well as customer needs, and then provide a solution which will differentiate them in the marketplace.

The medical providers needs to embrace competition at local, regional as well as global levels. The growing competition could impact not only your international success but also eventually impact on your local business. Key competitive factors to determine long term sustainability could include:

• Understanding Competition: who are you competing with directly or indirectly at local, regional, global level
• Competitive Advantages: how can you differentiate your products and services from your competition
• Product Customization: how can you evolve your healthcare product for a globalized healthcare system
• Transparency: are you offering transparency to your customers – pricing, clinical data, technology, doctors credentials, outcomes, etc
• Perception: what is the perception of your target customers about your brand compared to competition in the industry

By performing an unbiased competitive analysis you can understand your strengths and weaknesses. The process entails planning, collecting and analyzing information that is available around us and decisions that we have to make. Data driven approach could provide you with competitive insights that can help you position your brand in the marketplace.

An extensive understanding of the legal, political, economical, socio-cultural and technology environment in the industry is essential towards developing a strategy that will help your clinic in gaining competitive advantage. If you are unable to understand basic principles and only focuses on random patient acquisition strategy then you are bound to be left far behind in this race.

Learn how to beat your competition in medical tourism!