Marketing Dissertation on Apollo Hospitals Enterprises Ltd-MBA Case Study and Project Report
How to Write a Project Report on Marketing and Case Study on Apollo Hospitals
Company and Strategic Analysis of Apollo Hospitals
Company Background
·
Apollo Hospitals Enterprises
Ltd (AHEL) was incorporated in 1979. Dr Prathap C Reddy, the Executive
Chairman, is also the founder of the company. AHEL is a publicly held company,
being the first listed entity in healthcare in India. It can also claim to be the
first corporate entity in Asia to offer healthcare services.
Apart from hospitals and
pharmacies, the Apollo Group has wide-ranging interests in other fields of
healthcare. The group companies include Apollo Health and Life Style Ltd, in
neighbourhood clinics; Apollo Health Street Inc, which offers software
solutions to hospitals; Apollo Telemedicine Networking
·
Foundation, which uses
electronic communication for diagnosis and treatment in rural areas; Med
Varsity Online Ltd, an on-line portal for medical education; and Apollo
Hospital Education and Research Foundation, which conducts educational and
training programmes on nursing, hospital administration, physiotherapy, etc.
·
The Apollo Pharmacy chain was
started in 1983, as a facility to serve patients of the newly established
Apollo Hospitals, in Chennai. The Apollo Pharmacy division is the entity
through which AHEL retails medicines. AHEL developed its retail division,
pharmacies and clinics into a full-fledged business in 2000.
·
The initial wave of expansion
of the company’s pharmacy chain was focused on cities where Apollo Hospitals
were located, and hence its presence was strongest in South India. However, the
emerging pattern is the company expanding its pharmacy chain into areas where
it has plans to establish a hospital.
·
The company aims to have 1,000
outlets by the end of 2009. At present, all the outlets are fully owned and
managed by Apollo Pharmacy itself. New pharmacies are likely to be established
mainly in tier-II cities, in line with Apollo Hospitals’ plan to develop
hospitals in that category of location.
·
In order to provide mobile
consumers with more access points to its pharmacy stores, Apollo Pharmacy has,
as part of its expansion plans, tied up with Indian Oil Corporation to
establish convenience stores in Indian Oil’s service stations in India. It has
also expressed an interest in Indian Railways’ proposal to set up
pharmacies-cum-clinics at various stations to take care of passengers’
emergency medical needs.
Private Label
·
Apollo Pharmacy has low-value
medicines manufactured by third parties, and sells them under its two private
labels, Apollo and Doctors’ Choice. It also plans to launch a vitamin range
under a separate private label brand.
Competitive Positioning
·
With Apollo’s presence being
confined to the chemists/pharmacies sector, the company has a minor presence in
retailing in India, ranking outside the top 20 retailers. However, it was the
leading chemists/pharmacies player in India in 2008, with 600 outlets and a
value share of just over 1%.
·
In a highly fragmented market,
Apollo managed to increase its value share over the review period. This was
mainly as a result of outlets added on an annual basis by the company. The tie
up with the Godrej Aadhar chain, owned by Godrej Agrovet, has enabled the
company to take its presence beyond cities into rural areas.
·
Apollo has a nationwide
presence, with stores in North, South, East and West India. Having started off
its operations in Chennai in South India, this region has the largest number of
Apollo Pharmacy outlets. The company has not significantly expanded its
operations into East and Northeast India, with outlets only in the cities of
Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, Raipur and Bilaspur.
·
In 2008, Apollo Pharmacy
introduced NurseStations, a new service concept, at 30 of its most conveniently
located outlets in the twin cities of Hyderabad/Secunderabad in South India.
The centres function as a primary interface point for access to healthcare
support and medical attention. Trained nurses at the centres assist consumers
with obtaining appointments with relevant doctors; administer vaccinations;
conduct routine medical tests; and also provide on-call services at home for a
range of medical services, like dialysis, wound dressing and insulin
injections. The launch of NurseStations is significant, given the context of
latent consumer demand for patient-centric healthcare, and given that it could
potentially expand access to affordable treatment for common family illnesses.
·
Apollo’s strengths lie in its
financial capacity and its brand name. The backing of the Apollo Hospitals
Group provides the company access to capital for expanding its operations. The
Apollo brand is associated with healthcare, and hence the association of Apollo
Pharmacy with medicine products is strong. To encourage purchases from its
stores, Apollo Pharmacy also provides free health insurance of up to Rs20,000
to customers who spend more than Rs6,000 per annum at its stores. Customers can
also get a discount on purchases made at Apollo Pharmacy, or on any out-patient
investigation or treatment at the company’s hospitals.
Source-Euromonitor International : Local Company
Profile-April 2009
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