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Healthcare (Pharmacy, Clinics, Hospital) & Wellness Industry

Healthcare (Pharmacy, Clinics, Hospital) & Wellness Industry

Health & Wellness Industry | Retail Business Experts

# The dire need

Action is good for the body and non-action is good for the mind. Lifestyles that tend to violate the essence of this principle for long also end up violating our natural states of a healthy body and mind. Our body and mind are not accustomed to hectic work and professional life schedules for too long. Nor for a relentless run for materialistic growth going unchecked for months and years. In the so-called ‘pursuit of happiness’, maintaining a healthy lifestyle goes undermined. The body and mind begin to start invoicing us in a few years.

Globally, an ever-increasing number of people are beginning to realize the need to address the needs of their body and mind. This phenomenon is evident in the increased number of gyms, yoga and meditation centres, fitness clubs, etc. There is also an increase in the number of people who go for evening walks. The demand for bicycles is at an all-time high. Now more people chose to take the stairs instead of elevators. Increasing cases of health disorders also act as a lighthouse.

Enterprises in the health and wellness sector

The scope of enterprises contributing to the health and wellness of society could be wide. The basic tenet is that health is curative and specific and wellness is preventive and holistic. For instance, hospitals come under the category of a healthcare enterprise. But a yoga or meditation centre falls in the wellness category. The same tenet applies to classifying products or product-based enterprises.

Challenges in the Health and Wellness Industry

# Lack of digitization

Being in the field of health clinic consulting, we have been witnessing that inadequate digitization of business operations remains a grave concern for traditional enterprises. And this also includes the ones in the health and wellness sector. The longer an enterprise takes to bid goodbye to its manual systems, the longer will it be its stay in a deprived position of improved operational efficiency. Its ability for precise planning and informed decision making will also be hampered. The absence of digitization also means greater reliance on physical labour. This means higher manpower requirements. Business activities are relatively slower in enterprises that are yet to embrace digitization.

# Not leveraging eCommerce

The cost of not embracing eCommerce in relevant ways is the biggest threat enterprises are exposing themselves to. Embracing eCommerce means incorporating those aspects of eCommerce that can help an enterprise expand its market accessibility and remain competitive. For example, virtual medical consulting is used to remotely reach out to clients/patients. Another example would be to offer the option of online registration and booking of appointments. Product-based enterprises develop mobile applications/websites for online customers. The challenge here is formulating a robust and competitive eCommerce strategy. Many enterprises plunge into the eCommerce mode but never see the anticipated results. This is because of poor planning and strategies that could help them leverage the power of eCommerce in ways that are relevant to their concern.

# Creating and Communicating a clear Brand Positioning

If it is not a first of its kind of a product or service, homogeneity of offerings tends to be a big constraint for health and wellness enterprises. The business model plays a break-or-make move here. Good business modelling calls for better market insights and a better understanding of customers’ needs and expectations, and a comprehensive assessment of the capabilities required to deliver. Customers need to be clearly communicated to help them easily understand what a brand stands for and what it delivers. And then it is about living up to those promises and expectations. For instance, any leading pharmacy brand realizes the significance of its brand positioning in the market. Their pharmacy services are dependent on their pharmacy operations. And they also know that poor operations or the absence of standard operating procedures for healthcare and wellness enterprises can prevent them from fulfilling their commitments.

# Poor Acquisition Efforts

In the age of eCommerce, it is a blunder to restrict customer acquisition only to the local markets. Today, growth and expansion is possible to new markets in nearby regions or even other states and countries. Enterprises in the health and wellness sector need to work more on the lines of glocal marketing strategies. If the focus is entirely on the local market, the marketing efforts must resonate strongly with the local customer base. It does not matter whether it is outdoor advertising or digital campaigning. Health and medical professionals need not necessarily be adept at business development. In healthcare and hospital consulting (business), our experts strongly feel that in difficult areas of business, availing the services of business consultants offering healthcare consulting services could save the day.

# Poor Services

Customer complaints are rampant in the diagnosis or medical consulting sector. The situation is worse in highly-populated countries or regions where the OPD sections of the healthcare enterprises are overwhelmed because of the sheer number of clients/patients. To get an appointment with any renowned specialist, sometimes patients may have to wait for days. There hardly is any follow-up with the patient/client after the consultation. Many clinics charge registration fees from the same client again and again citing ‘validity of registration’. The practical aspect of it is that a medical consulting clinic can handle only a limited number of clients/patients. But the problem is that most of these medical consulting clinics do not consider the patients who come to them for a cure or a diagnosis as clients. But gone are the days when these clinics could take even one client lightly. Poor service levels can no longer go unnoticed because of the internet and social media platforms. If the intent of customer orientation is present, standard operating procedures for healthcare enterprises could do the rest. For instance, in skin clinic consulting, experts know the significance of periodical follow up with customers regarding the treatment and effects. By developing SOPs for healthcare enterprises, businesses can ensure that service operations are duly executed on time and maintain the established standards.

# Building the Teams

A team in an organization includes everyone including the owner and the janitor. If a health and wellness centre had to be run in a manner that reflects the principles and morals of its owners, it has to be careful with who becomes a part of its team. The team members or the employees not only interact with clients but also with one another. This has a bearing on the work culture and the functioning of the organization. How the front line staff interacts with the outsiders affects the brand identity and public perception of the enterprise. Building a team is a demanding task. It involves professional activities like formulating a recruitment strategy, designing training and development programs, building a strong and transparent performance management system, and promoting a productive and amiable work culture. External assistance from a team of professional healthcare and hospital consultants are always of big help in this sphere of work.

# Location, Layout and Logistics

With more than 10 years of experience in delivering health clinic consulting services, we always maintain that location, layout, and logistics are three important variables for health and wellness enterprises. These factors play a big role in customer acquisition, conversion and retention. For example, the ideal location for a meditation centre would be one that is away from the hustle and bustle of the city. For a gym or fitness club, customers should not have a hard time arriving through moderate urban traffic.

A good layout plan ensures that there is an optimized utilization of the available space. This has to be done also keeping in mind the customer experience intended to be delivered.

For product-based stores, logistics become an important consideration. For example, an enterprise dealing in fitness equipment must have robust plans and strategies for managing its logistic and inventory operations.

# Quality of Trainers and Staff

In health and wellness, trainers and staff must be well-behaved, well-trained, and technically sound. Everything done in marketing would turn futile if the service delivery is a disappointment for clients and customers. In delivering health clinic consulting services, our experts witness from time to time that many business owners completely ignore the importance of customer experience. Honest opinions and feedback from customers are important. Not having a reporting and feedback system is a step further worse. In our health, wellness and skin clinic consulting services, we always stress that the challenge here is to realise and emphasise the importance of customer experience; not just the premium customers but even the ones who are on the basic plan.

Why YRC: a glimpse

We are a boutique retail and eCommerce consulting firm. We offer health and wellness business consulting services to businesses in this industry. Our services extend to retail pharmacy management consulting, hospital consulting, fitness club business consulting, dental clinic consulting, skin clinic consulting, etc. in the domain of business and management. We deploy an experienced team of healthcare and wellness industry experts. The team also includes retail pharmacy management consultants.

Market research is one of the foundational requirements in starting or expanding a business. Areas where market research helps are classifying the market segments, projecting the market size, assessment of competition, demand and price analysis, etc. In addition to these assessments, YRC’s team of wellness and healthcare business consulting experts shall also include recommendations and CTAs. These will be based on comprehensive studies and analyses in our healthcare and hospital consulting (business) services.

In business model development, YRC’s ultimate goal is to help clients build a strong business model. We help clients identify their UVP. Our team of expert healthcare and hospital consultants assist them in formulating the strategic framework of the value chain and network of internal capabilities. YRC’s healthcare clinic consulting experts help clients build the right business model.

As a part of our health, wellness and skin clinic consulting services, in business plan development, we help clients envision the commercial viability of their business. Our services shall cover estimation of the capital and initial investments, operational costs, costing, revenue projections, purchase and inventory planning, profit and loss projections, ROI and break-even analysis, etc.

In layout planning, our experts guide clients in preparing robust layout planning for their business. It could be pharmacies, health and wellness centres, warehouses, or fulfilment centres. This is done considering the unique nature and requirements of clients’ business. As a part of our pharmacy business consulting services, layout planning has proved to be useful to many of our retail pharmacy and healthcare pharmacy clients.

Embracing eCommerce in relevant ways makes a significant difference in the performance of enterprises in the health and wellness sector. For instance, in hospital consulting (business), we always preach that embracing eCommerce offers the flexibility to offer many services via the online mode. In eCommerce business strategy consulting for health and wellness enterprises, we help clients plan, define and incorporate their eCommerce business strategy. We work to ensure that the enterprise-wide transition from single channel to omnichannel is synchronized, smooth, and quick.

YRC offers SOP consulting services for small, midsize and large retail enterprises. Our services also cover franchises. In SOP consulting, we help clients establish the operational routines and ensure that standards of performance and output are consistently maintained. We design and develop the healthcare standard operating procedures (healthcare SOPs) for managing business operations. Our goal with developing SOPs for healthcare enterprises is to help clients become process-oriented enterprises, remain growth-ready and scalable, and consistently deliver a superlative customer experience via impeccable internal and external operations.

Franchising is a commonly used business expansion strategy in the health and wellness sector. In franchise consulting, our team of expert healthcare and hospital consultants help clients define expansion strategies, formulate business plans, assist in franchise partner search, draft franchise legal agreements, develop SOPs for healthcare enterprises, and define various audit processes.

To know more about our health and wellness business consulting services or if you have any specific queries, drop us a message and we will get back to you.

Let’s Talk!

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    We work only for Visionaries.

    PROCESS AUTOMATION

    The idea of having Ecommerce Consultants on-board from the beginning itself points towards reducing the involvement of the promoters in daily operations. Ecommerce Businesses willing to be a brand reaping profits & sustaining the competition must ensure that most of their processes should be automated. The more the manual intervention, the more would be the errors.

    In Ecommerce business, you get only 1 chance to impress the customer & if you mess up there, you lose the customer for long.

    Process automation in respect to all the activities pertaining to customers from order receiving to order fulfilment is a must for a seamless experience for the customers.

    Task Management is another grey area where most deadlines fail as 90% of the tasks are assigned manually & are forgotten, unheard, misunderstood or mistaken.

    YRC Team of Ecommerce Management Consultants helps to make maximum of the processes system-driven to ensure minimalistic manual intervention.

    VIDEOGRAPHY & PHOTOGRAPHY

    No matter how good your product is, the customer would know only if it looks good.

    Photography includes the following steps:

    • Cataloguing your products
    • Cataloguing your images
    • Backup your images (A few cloud storage solutions include Dropbox, Google Drive, Bitcasa, Apple’s Cloud Storage etc.)
    • Choose the right camera & lens (You may also outsource the photography to a third party agency)

    DIGITAL MARKETING

    Digital Marketing includes SEO & SMM. SEO i.e. Search Engine Optimization includes activities like back-linking, meta tags, blog-writing etc. to ensure your website ranks on the 1st page on Google Search.

    Next comes SMM i.e. “Social Media Marketing” which as the name suggests including promoting your products on all the social media sites, email marketing, influencer marketing & several other BTL activities.

    These activities are going to be recurring & would decide the traffic on the website, the conversions, whether the right target market is tapped, the likes, the views, the orders, the reviews & much more. YRCs Ecommerce Consultants create a budget for digital marketing right from pre-launch to launch & for each month thereafter.

    Building digital marketing strategies in coordination with the agency, selecting them to signing them off would be the role of YRC.

    This ensures seamless coordination, detailed interactions & desired execution as it is always advisable to work with a single agency than multiple of them.

    IT INTEGRATION

    Selection of the right software for smooth functioning of back-end operations right from production to webstore display would be suggested and integrated by YRC Team.

    YRC’s Team defines SOPs of Product Movement, maps it with the locations & people. They then create a blueprint of all the features required in the software & help in shortlisting & selection.

    IT Integration involves connecting your offline inventories with real-time online webstore so when a sale occurs, inventories get deducted real time across offline as well as online platforms.

    This helps in accurate inventory management, maintaining the MOQs, re-order levels & achieving the optimum inventory levels.

    Some popular software include unicommerce, viniculum for your front-end website management & Genisys for your entire back-end Purchase, Production, Accounting, Invoicing etc. management.

    WAREHOUSE & LOGISTICS PLANNING

    • How many cities or countries you wish to sell in?
    • Where should your Warehouse be located?
    • Should you have one warehouse in each country or city?
    • Should you be having your own delivery team in your base city?
    • Would the 3rd party vendors be reliable? What happens when they lose or misplace your product during delivery?
    • How should I manage the logistics if my goods are coming from different countries?
    • How should the goods be stored and barcoded?
    • How much space do I require for warehouse?
    • I am sure several such questions must be haunting you while you think of starting your own fashion ecommerce brand.

     

    At YRC, our warehousing and logistics experts can help you devise a strategy for all of the above mentioned queries and much more.

    We design the layout of the Warehouse considering the inward, goods processing, software entry, barcoding, outward, goods return, scrap storage, goods stacking & much more.

    Logistics route plan is devised considering the manufacturer to your warehouse and from there to last mile delivery locations.

    UI & UX DESIGNING

    This Step involves 03 distinct parts:

    Part 1: Choosing the right Platform:

    From several platforms available in the market right from Shopify to magento, woocommerce, prestoshop, wordpress etc. you must choose the one that fits best for your business

    Part 2: UX Designing:

    “UX” denotes User Experience, which if put in simple language is building the functional requirements of the website.

    UX Designing includes designing the features required in the website, customer journey map, website features, the browsing features, navigation features, ecommerce order management process flow, checkout cart features, catalogue management, ecommerce payment system, cross selling features & much more.

    “As per statistics, 68% of the customers abandon the carts before payment”

    An interesting UX ensures the customer sticks on to the website for a longer time.

    Part 3: UI Designing:

    UI stands for User Interface, which means designing the look and feel of the website. UI includes using the right colours, elements and the entire aesthetics of the website.

    A good User Interface ensures the user completes the task that he has come for. It navigates the user through the journey of the brand in the simplest but most effective way.

    The UX designer maps out the bare bones of the user journey; the UI designer then fills it in with visual and interactive elements.

    If User experience is the bare bone, user interface wraps it up with an attractive cape.

    At YRC, our team if experts can help you develop the entire User Journey to ensure it is engaging!

    SAMPLING & PRODUCTION

    This step follows the “Designing” Phase, whether you have an in-house design team, freelance designers or an outsourced design company. It is one of the most exciting phases, as here you see your designs turning into products & your ideas turning into reality.

    In most start-up cases, production is outsourced i.e. brands tie-up with the established manufacturers/ job-workers to get their products manufactured.

    Sampling involves multiple 04 Stages, Fit-Sample, Prototype Sample, Pre-Production Sample & the Production Sample.

    Prototype Sample is the first sample provided to the buyer. It can be in any fabric/ colour. This sample is just to understand whether the product design looks equally great in reality.

    Fit Sample, as the name suggests is prepared to check the fit of the garment i.e. the various sizes, length, width etc.

    Pre-production is made by the actual production line. Here the stitching quality and other aspects related to manufacturing are checked. This is the last stage where rejection can be accepted.

    Production Sample is made before the production which is the replica of what is going to be finally produced.

    Once you are through with all this, you are good to go ahead & get your goods manufactured.

    PRODUCT DESIGNING / SOURCING

    Product Designing or Sourcing is the heart of the Ecommerce Fashion Brand.

    Product Designing / Sourcing can be done in several ways, as follows:

    • In-house Design Team
    • Freelance Designers
    • Outsourced Design Team
    • Ready Product Sourcing (From Manufacturer or Wholesaler)

    At YRC, we evaluate your business strategy & business model to arrive at the decision, which of the above ways would be best-fit for your business. In certain cases, product sourcing may be a combination of the above.

    These are the people who are going to build your brand! Whether they are the designers or merchandiser, your brand look is going to be in their hands.

    If you are designing each garment from the scratch, the sourcing would play crucial role in developing design identity of your brand.

    Sourcing includes fabric, trims, lining & all the raw material required to build the garment.

    BRANDING

    Branding is the “Look of the Brand”, right from logo to tagline, the colours used, the brand story, the brand communications on social media, the packaging & all the other aspects which speak directly or indirectly to the customers. Branding constitutes the look & feel of the brand & hence must be thoughtfully planned to match with the product that we are selling.

    Branding must appeal to our target audience. Example : A golden colour logo depicting finesse, art, richness, premium, however beautiful it may be individually cannot go with a brand selling affordable kids wear products. So, your logo must be in-line with your brand positioning, whether you are an expensive brand or a luxury brand or a value for money brand, it must be depicted from your “Branding”.

    It is an integral part to attract the target audience.

    ORGANOGRAMS & SOP’s

    Organogram is the “HR Blueprint” of the business which is created at the onset, to map out the team required across each function at various stages of the business. At the launch, only key people need to be got on board to ensure the project gets started & at this stage, all of them need to multi-task. Similarly, certain financial as well as operational goals are set for addition of the further team. Example, for the operations team, we hire 1 operations manager during the pre-launch phase & we add 1 more only when the business kicks-off & we reach a volume of selling more than 1000 pcs/ month or a turnover of more than 0.1 million USD.

    SOPs are Standard Operating Procedures, a bible to run the entire organization right from Sales, Purchase, HR, Order receiving to Order fulfilment, Inventory Management, Accounts, Warehouse, Logistics, Supply Chain, Production & all the other relevant functions for the business. Business must be organized from its first day of operations; only then the tasks can be delegated.

    At YRC, we design the organization structure, the processes, and approximate time taken to execute each process, job profile of every member within the organization, their KRAs, KPIs & the Reporting Structure.

    CRITICAL PATHWAY

    Critical Pathway Analysis (CPA), is a project management technique which cannot be overlooked while launching an ecommerce fashion brand. Brand launch process is cumbersome with multiple inter-dependent & time-bound tasks involved, which need to be tracked to ensure the project remains on track.

    CPA outlines key tasks across the project, their turnaround time (TAT) & the dependencies of tasks upon each other. It identifies the sequence of tasks, their interdependent steps from inception to completion, their criticalities, and their dates of onset, target dates of completion along with the key responsible person for the respective activities. Critical Pathway helps in understanding the unimportant & not urgent tasks which may jeopardize the execution of the project because of an unexpected snag! It also maps out the potential bottlenecks which might be posed because of the dependencies of tasks upon each other & cases where the next task cannot be commenced before the completion of the previous one.

    CPA detects the minimum & the maximum time involvement of a particular individual or team to execute the task, thereby arriving at the overall deadlines associated with the project.

    At Your Retail Coach, we design the Critical Pathway & review it periodically to ensure the project is on track & the progress is measurable.

    BUSINESS STRATEGY & BUSINESS PLAN

    Business Strategy includes the vision, mission, goals, business model, business plan & strategy for all the functions within the organization.

    Business Strategy is a well-defined plan that outlines who, what, where, why, how & when for the company; for example, who would be the target market, how to attract the target audience, when to launch new products, where to operate from, how to handle competitors, what would be the USP, what would be long term goal of the organization & several other answers to the 5Ws of Strategy.

    Business Strategy aligns the organization towards a common goal. Business SWOT helps company to identify & overcome their weaknesses & focus to sharpen the strengths. Business strategy forecasts future risks and helps business in building skillsets to overcome the potential threats.

    YRC’s Business Plan focuses on creating a “Blueprint” of the business, thereby deriving the feasibility of the concept & gauge whether the opportunity is lucrative to invest time, energy & effort. Business Plan creates cash flow understanding i.e. building inflow & outflow cash projections from Week zero to week 60 i.e. 05 year projection. Business Plan calculates the capital investment, operating costs, one-time costs, recurring costs & all the other numbers relevant to obtain the breakeven sales, return on investment, return on capital, internal rate of return & several other ratios. Business Plan is also one of the important requirements if you are targeting the “Investor Route”. Fund raising becomes extremely transparent & channelized. With business plan panned out clearly, the business will know until what point must it be stretched & where to stop, which reduces the probability of unplanned investments.

    MARKET RESEARCH

    Starting the concept of Ecommerce Fashion brand with Market Research ensures we get detailed understanding of the industry & this research report also acts as a social confirmation for your concept. Market Research helps in understanding the target locations, their population, potential online buyers for your product, competitors for each category, and top selling products of the competitors, competitors’ price range, offers & their responses & much more. Market Research helps in thorough understanding of your brand position as compared to our competitors. It helps in identifying gaps in the market, in your category along with the scope of the said product in the desired market. This will help in validation of your concept & prevents you from making the same mistakes as your fellow brands, eventually saving your time, energy & efforts. This phase is also a make or a break phase, as the market research study may at-times come up with some eye-popping numbers & statistics which might compel you to re-think on your product or category that you are planning to sell or alter your entire concept itself!! Market Research Reports analyse the competitors’ webstore for their traffic, conversion & sales. This is extremely valuable information to derive our inventory budgets & projections, which takes us to our next phase.