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Clinics & Healthcare Centres Industry

Clinics & Healthcare Centres Industry

The Significance of Clinics and Healthcare Centres

After hospitals, clinics and healthcare centres serve as the next big channels of delivery of medical care and services. Whether in the public sector or private sector, clinics and healthcare centres are used to offer a wide range of preventive medical care services. This includes vaccinations, awareness programs, free medical supplies (by government, private CSR, NGOs), health check-ups, various kinds of tests and diagnoses, treatment of minor ailments/injuries, managing chronic health conditions, etc.

Managing clinics and healthcare centres with utmost professionalism is critically important given the level of sensitivity associated with medical care. The support functions must be highly reliable so that medical services can be smoothly provided. The quality of support functions in clinics and healthcare centres affects the timely availability of medical supplies, maintenance of assets and equipment, proper staffing, timely payment of bills to suppliers, adherence to regulatory requirements, etc. Without these aspects in order, it can be difficult for the medical teams in clinics and healthcare centres to deliver the core services.

Challenges – from management perspective

Staffing Challenges

Clinics and healthcare centres are profoundly dependent on the quality of their personnel. Finding and retaining good talent is the leading test. To begin with, specialist doctors of repute are difficult to find these days. The few available ones are highly sought after and their charges tend to be very high. Also, medical care seekers often criticize about the quality of time given by such reputed experts for consultation. This is a blow to the reputation of healthcare clinics and centres.

The quality of services delivered by nurses and other support employees also influences the experience of patients. There are many factors at play here. Topping this list is the excellence of education and training received. Next is the scarcity of staff which upsurges the workload on the standing bench. Thirdly, providing nursing and other medical care services can be a tedious job. Working for long hours or under an immense workload can make one lose passion for the role.

Operational Challenges

Clinics and healthcare centres may not be as large and complex as organisations as hospitals are. However, given the element of sensitivity associated with medical care and the need to have robust support functions makes it necessary to manage the operations of this secondary layer of healthcare delivery systems with utmost professionalism. The need is even more profound in large healthcare clinics and centres or ones with an extensive network of units (e.g. government healthcare centres). A few operational challenges affecting clinics and healthcare centres are discussed below.

When it comes to staffing, there cannot be any voids in the availability of medical and support teams. Leaves have to be approved while following the established leave rules and policies and allocating replacement staff. Resignation of employees must be addressed with new appointments or transfers and promotions. Having policies and strategies for staff management is one thing, ensuring their smooth and timely implementation with precision and accountability is another.

To provide medical care, clinics and healthcare centres are dependent on different machines and equipment depending upon the nature of medical care services provided. Quality control of these assets is indispensable and a perpetual task. It is important to have SOPs for repair, maintenance, and replacement operations.

Proper inventory management in clinics and healthcare centres is of critical importance. Whether it is medical supplies or housekeeping materials, any shortcoming in inventory management could lead to medical services coming to a halt or falling below the required quality standards. This necessitates having:

  • Strategies and policies for inventory management
  • SOPs for inventory management in clinics and healthcare centres
  • Inventory management software for clinics and healthcare centres (stock monitoring, reordering and replenishment, analytics, etc.)
  • Inventory storing solutions, logistics
  • Adequate staffing
  • Budgets
  • Audit and improvisations

Commercial Challenges

Advisors from reputed healthcare business consulting companies are often found reiterating that one of the biggest challenges in the management of hospitals, clinics, and healthcare centres is staying commercially sustainable. What makes things difficult for organisations in the healthcare sector is that they have to keep in mind their role in the society and nation as healers in the backdrop of rising costs of medicines, equipment for medical care, and retaining specialists and quality support professionals. Three big reasons for medical care becoming more expensive year after year are the ever-increasing demand for medical care, increased cost of production of medicines and medical supplies, and general factors like policies, taxes, education, etc.

Marketing Challenges

In times when there is growing criticism of healthcare service providers and pharmaceutical companies for excessive prioritisation of commercial interests, building and maintaining confidence and credibility among the common masses has become a big marketing challenge.

In the private sector, it is even more challenging to amaze stakeholders with publicity and promotional crusades alone. People know how bad bills from hospitals and healthcare organisations can shake their finances.

Technology-Related Challenges

Cybersecurity tops the list of technology-related challenges in modern-day clinics and healthcare centres. For purposes like registration, access to benefit schemes, payments, and processing insurance claims, these service providers have to collect, process, and store many personal data of patients. This includes medical history, information on bank accounts and insurance, social security/identification data, etc. Such wells of information are instant eye candies for cybercriminals. When such databases are breached, cybercriminals use the stolen information for various nefarious purposes like counterfeiting identities, making false insurance claims, etc. A large majority of clinics and healthcare centres are not equipped with strong enough cybersecurity apparatuses to deal with such cyber attacks. Interoperability within IT systems is another big hurdle.

Future Trends

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are set to bring many big changes in the delivery of medical care and the management of clinics and healthcare centres. For instance, IT solutions equipped with more advanced AI and ML capabilities are now being tested for more insightful diagnosis, analysis, predictions, and automation of many routine operations. The same technologies are also making inroads in the field of management and administration of clinics and healthcare centres.

Telemedicine is not a new idea but with more advanced ICT solutions like 5G, satellite-based internet services, Virtual Reality, telemedicine and other forms of remote medical services are likely to see a sharp increase in their popularity and accessibility. Contemporary clinics and healthcare centres with such technologies will no longer remain confined to their cities and states.

Progresses made in the field of genetics science with the help of Artificial Intelligence and advanced analytic software are already setting the stage for precision medicine. This will allow clinics and healthcare centres to personalise services based on the genetic make-up of individual patients.

Many modern-day clinics and healthcare centres are also adopting a patient-centric style of delivering medical care and attention. The accent is shifting towards lowering readmission rates and taking up preventive medical care as a priority.

In the next five years, clinics and healthcare centres are more likely to offer wellness and awareness programs promoting healthy lifestyle habits and work-life equilibrium.

To deal with this challenge of cybersecurity concerns, healthcare business consulting firms with relevant experience and expertise on the subject matter will play a bigger role.

Why YRC

With a decade-long experience as retail and eCommerce consultants, YRC has served more than 500 brands and businesses from over 25 verticals with a success ratio of over 94%. In healthcare business management consulting, YRC helps entrepreneurs and organisations set up their enterprises, redesign management, bring process excellence, and execute growth and expansion projects. A glimpse of YRC’s services and solutions for clinics and healthcare centres are highlighted ahead.

Business Model Development

Business models of clinics & healthcare centres are unlike others. For starters, the nature of the services rendered by clinics & healthcare centres is sensitive. Secondly, the regulatory protocols governing these enterprises are stringent. Thirdly, standards and technicalities of medical science and treatment are involved.

In developing business models for clinics & healthcare centres, the first prerogative is the understanding of public health. Sound awareness of the prevailing healthcare systems and standards is the next big requirement. Clinics & healthcare centres must also gauge how the public in general approaches health care.

YRC understands the diverse set of requirements and variables that come into play in developing business models for clinics & healthcare centres. YRC works closely with its clients in this process and works to ensure that business models are built on strong values along with the necessary emphasis on the factor of sustainability.

Global Talent Acquisition & Onboarding Services

Healthcare should never be confined by geographical limits. Technology has helped overcome this challenge but human-to-human interaction continues to play a major role in delivering medical care and treatment.

YRC seeks to make it easier for clinics & healthcare centres to find the right professionals from around the world via its global talent hunt and onboarding services. YRC understands that global hiring is a job filled with more complexities than any local or domestic hiring. To begin with, recognition of professional qualifications between two countries can vary. Pay discrepancies are the next big challenge. How two professionals from two different countries approach their career growth need not be the same. Cultural and linguistic factors also play a decisive role affecting communication and comprehension. Employment in a different country evokes a whole new set of regulatory protocols and processes.

YRC’s talent acquisition team is cognizant of the specifications and challenges associated with global hiring and onboarding. Here, YRC’s services include the formulation of hiring strategies, the development of the recruitment and onboarding processes, and the execution of the recruitment drives with due observance of the fundamentals of HRM and the laws of the lands.

Preparation for NABH & JCI Accreditation

Having NABH and JCI accreditation helps patients, healthcare institutions, and communities at large. As obtaining and holding these accreditations demand strict adherence to established standards and protocols, it helps bring into place very high standards of medical care, support services, and management. Having one or more accreditations helps patients and the public make distinctions among service providers. On the flip side, it gives recognition and goodwill to clinics and healthcare centres. When recruiting, it is also easier for recognized clinics and healthcare centres to attract the best talents. Communities gain in terms of improved quality of healthcare, generation of quality employment, and local economic development.

The biggest challenge here for clinics and healthcare centres is to incorporate all the guidelines into one organised package of implementation. Secondly, these guidelines must be also incorporated into their routine operations planning as the adherence to established standards and protocols must be consistently followed.

YRC’s role is to help clinics and healthcare centres in the execution planning of the applicable guidelines towards the objective of fulfilling the criteria for accreditation. The solution comes in the form of the development of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) aligned with NABH & JCI guidelines. In this process, YRC works in close coordination with its clients.

Layout Design & Equipment Planning

Layout design and equipment planning have the ability to influence the management and performance of clinics and healthcare centres.

Firstly, patient experience is affected by the physical environment and other tangible aspects arising out of it. For example, it is important to reduce the navigational needs and waiting time of patients. These two aspects are affected by the placement and arrangement of resources.

Secondly, a good layout design and equipment planning aids in rationalizing operations, space optimisation, securing smooth and fast navigation, integrating ergonomics, minimising the scope of errors and mistakes, etc. Some of the aspects of layout design and equipment planning may also be directly affected by the guidelines of relevant accreditation bodies.

For new or upcoming clinics and healthcare centres, the layout design & equipment planning exercise is not easy with the biggest potential hindrance being the lack of experience and expertise. On the other hand, working with an experienced team can help them complete the exercise in a time-bound and organised manner. This is where YRC’s Layout Design & Equipment Planning services for clinics and healthcare centres chip in. Our methodology requires working in close coordination with clients to map the equipment requirements depending on the services, operations, and specialisations.

Process Consulting and SOPs

Not all clinics and healthcare centres are large organisations. However, business processes tend to be complex even in small organisations – whether it is from healthcare or any other sector. Without being process-oriented at the back end, clinics and healthcare centres may fail to properly deliver their core medical services. For example, the absence of clarity in process mapping makes it easier for employees to comprehend their roles, responsibilities, and workflows. This, in turn, fosters teamwork and shrinks the scope of uncertainty in workplaces. If inventory management in clinics and healthcare centres is taken into consideration, having well-established operations helps ensure that supplies are always available. Even when it comes to interdepartmental coordination between medical and non-medical departments, a strong operations framework helps build the required handshaking of processes.

Process consulting is one of YRC’s flagship services with SOP development and implementation support as an important part of it. Planned and tested approaches are used in the development and implementation of healthcare clinic SOP solutions customised to suit diverse requirements and specifications.

Some of the routine (non-medical/administrative/business process) SOPs used in healthcare clinics and centres are:

  • Patient intake SOPs
  • Patient discharge SOPs (Checkout SOPs)
  • Billing SOPs
  • Emergency response SOPs
  • Housekeeping SOPs
  • Asset management SOPs
  • Waste Disposal SOPs
  • SOPs for various staffing operations

Process Compliance Audits

Process compliance auditing is a step towards assessing whether the processes of an enterprise are in alignment with its policies and external environmental requirements.

A few key reasons to execute process compliance audits in healthcare clinics and centres are:

  • Ensuring an environment for the safety of patients
  • Ensuring compliance with applicable rules and regulations
  • Reducing wastage and redundancies
  • Enhancing process efficacy
  • Improving the experience of patients and medical attention seekers
  • Mapping gaps in skills

Here, YRC helps healthcare clinics and centres plan and develop the roadmap of executing process compliance audits covering:

  • Defining the scope of audit
  • Creation of audit teams
  • Classifying the documents and other papers for analysis
  • Pinpointing the positions in the organisation structure for observation and interviews
  • Developing checklists, questionnaires, identifying the methods of study and analysis
  • SOPs for appraisal of documents, observation, and conduct of interviews
  • Actionable reports and recommendations

Training Content Development – Compliance & SOPs

Sub-standard content can make any training or development program go astray. Training content must be on point and cover all the required topics. It must focus on the actual requirements or the field situations. In the case of healthcare clinics and centres, training and development attains special importance. Medical care is a highly sensitive subject. Patient experience in healthcare institutions cannot be compared with the customer experience in other sectors like fashion. Fashion too may have sensitivities involved but in the case of healthcare, the ramifications are knocking on the door. Then there are compliance requirements involved followed up by the necessity to adhere to internal policies and operational standards.

The training specialists of YRC reckon the gravity of sensitivities and requirements involved in healthcare institutions and their impact on training and development programs.

Here is a brief outline of training content development at YRC:

  • Defining the training goals (regulatory compliance, process compliance, improving patient experience, imparting technical know-how, better communication)
  • Evaluating the existing level of skills and knowledge of trainees
  • Identifying content requirements based on SME (Subject Matter Expertise)
  • Content development based on identified training and content requirements
  • Identifying the best channels of delivery
  • Test runs, improvisations
  • Training performance reporting

ECommerce/Online Healthcare Business Setup Consulting

Also termed as telemedicine, the demand for online medical consulting services has surged in the last two decades. Technological advancements have played a critical part in this. As it lets patients/clients remotely consult with doctors and specialists of healthcare clinics and centres, it saves the former the need to travel and wait. On the other side of the aisle, healthcare clinics and centres get the channel to cater to a wider geography.

In online healthcare business setup consulting, YRC offers an extensive range of solutions for enterprise set-up and expansion via way of new branches or capacity enhancement. YRC’s services cover market research, healthcare business model development, financial and commercial planning, formulation of functional strategies, process consulting (SOPs), integrating healthcare business IT solutions (healthcare business automation software and healthcare business analytics etc.), healthcare business franchising, and audit and control.

BI Dashboards Development

BI dashboards or Business Intelligence dashboards are digital display solutions in technological platforms (e.g. software) that show brief summaries of selected KPIs and other chosen metrics or parameters. This quick-glance display mechanism helps employees easily keep watch over important performance metrics.

BI dashboards are beneficial in the management of healthcare clinics and centres. YRC’s role here is to help healthcare enterprises identify and tailor BI dashboards for better management of business processes and operations (non-medical) in healthcare clinics and centres. The end goal is to help healthcare clinics and centres gain command over their operations and overall management. For example, BI dashboards can provide the stock levels of an extensive range of supplies on one single screen. It helps store managers make more informed decisions pertaining to reorders and replenishment operations.

New Healthcare Business Setup Consulting

In new healthcare business setup consulting, YRC’s offerings are comparable to the services mentioned earlier in eCommerce healthcare business setup consulting. The services cover market study and analysis, business model mapping, financial and commercial planning, operations planning (healthcare clinic standard operating procedures), functional planning, healthcare clinic IT solutions, franchising, and healthcare clinic audits. These services pertain to management only and do not cover medical operations or elements.

To know more about YRC’s healthcare business consulting services encompassing business set-up, management, and expansion or to speak to one of YRC’s healthcare business consulting experts, please visit the company’s website: https://www.yourretailcoach.in/contact/

Disclaimer:Explore YRC’s content repository for more insights on retail and ecommerce management challenges, solutions and more

Healthcare (Pharmacy, Clinics, Hospital) & Wellness Industry

Challenges in Pharmacy Retailing And How to Tactfully Overcome Them

Retail Pharmacy Consulting

Let’s Talk!

    FAQs

    How can a healthcare business consultant help my business?

    An experienced and expert health business consultant or consulting firm can help fine-tune the business and management aspects of your healthcare enterprise. This can include providing you with better market insights, helping you find the right value propositions, streamlining your business processes, helping you improve patient experience, assisting you in setting up new branches in new locations, etc.

    How can I attract patients to my new healthcare clinic?

    Since the question is about attracting clients, the emphasis of the answer is on branding alone. Branding is a wide term and in this context, a few important things it encompasses are:

    •         The appearance and quality of your healthcare clinic in both physical and digital worlds
    •         Display of acquired accreditations, certifications, licenses, permits, etc.
    •         Association(s) with accomplished and renowned individuals (doctors/specialists) and organisations (hospitals, NGOs, etc.) from the hospital and healthcare industry
    •         Sincere promotional campaigns that induce confidence

    Branding and promotions may help bring clients to your clinic but if the core services i.e. medical care and services are not up to the required and expected marks, it will be difficult to retain those clients. So, it is critically important to first build a robust system for delivering superior medical care and attention.

    How can I improve the profitability of my healthcare business?

    Here are three universal strategies to improve profitability in any business:

    Improve operational efficiency

    Improving the quality of operations planning can help bring down operational expenses. It gives rise to the possibility of shrinking wastes and redundancies. This can lead to saved manpower expenses. Inventory requirements can be optimised to bring down the cost per cycle. Space is better utilised with proper layout planning which in turn, can allow purchase and holding of higher levels of inventory at better prices from suppliers. Sound operational planning also reduces errors and reworks. All these factors eventually have positive ramifications on profitability.

    Revisit financial and commercial planning

    Sound financial and commercial planning helps organisations better manage their funds and other assets like inventory. Unnecessary or avoidable expenses could be curtailed. There is improved steadiness in the formation of funds and reserves. Having a plan and adhering to it means the likelihood of going out of track is minimal. Accounting provisions further lend certainty to handle minor deviations which otherwise may have to be borne at the cost of profits.

    Expand client base

    A bigger client base means a higher possibility for more business volume. A higher business volume leads to economies of scale. There is more revenue to invest in scale and capability enhancements which further becomes a reason for attracting more clients. While doing all these, medical services cannot face any downgrading.

    Should I expand the services of my healthcare business or open a new location?

    As a healthcare service provider, your primary consideration should be whether or not you can deliver quality services – as required by medical standards, regulatory norms, and logistical capabilities. Whether you expand services or open new branches, can you meet the above requirements?

    Now, let us address the business part of your question. First of all, you will need a good understanding of markets backed up by supportive facts and figures. Then, you will have to evaluate the business case for both the options – service expansion and geographic expansion.

    How can clinics and healthcare centres improve patient experience?

    Here are some management tips (non-medical) to improve patient experience:

    •         Cut waiting time
    •         Be transparent in relevant ways in terms of policies, pricing, deliverables, etc.
    •         Ensure correctness of information
    •         Timeliness in sharing information
    •         Focus on building and maintaining a safe, comfortable, and relaxing service environment
    •         Be empathetic at touchpoints
    •         Hire and train your employees professionally, ensure adequacy in staffing

    ·         Put in place a functional feedback mechanism

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    We work only for Visionaries.

    CONTACT

    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.