Introduction
Burjeel Hospital is the biggest private tertiary healthcare facility in Abu Dhabi. It was officially opened by Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chairman of Crown Prince’s Court in April 2012. It has more than 200 beds 10 operation theatres. The hospital has several royal and presidential suites.
This enables it to provide its services to wealthy patients. Burjeel provides several services that previously necessitated patients to travel abroad to seek quality care. The U.A.E. healthcare industry is highly competitive. Therefore, it is vital for Burjeel to use several strategies that would improve its competitiveness in the industry.
Direct and Indirect Competitors
Burjeel Hospital has state-of-the-art facilities that enable it to provide high quality care to its patients. However, it faces stiff competition from Al Noor Hospital and Gulf Diagnostic Centre Hospital, who are its direct competitors. Direct competitors are firms that sell similar products in the same market (Young & Pagoso, 2008).
Al Noor Hospital offers medical-surgical services to its clients. It has been in operation since 1985. It has more than 200 beds and more than 450 physicians. Al Noor provide provides primary, secondary, and tertiary care services. It has 3 hospitals and 9 medical centres. This enables it to be accessible to a large number of people in Abu Dhabi.
Gulf Diagnostic Centre Hospital (GDC) has been in operation since 1996. Initially, it was a diagnostic centre. However, it expanded its services to become a fully-fledged hospital. GDC has several operating theatres and inpatient patients. In addition, it uses highly advanced technological equipment in its laboratories to ensure that it provides high quality services to its patients. Use of highly advanced technological equipment enables the hospital to have a competitive edge in the healthcare industry.
Burjeel Hospital’s indirect competitors include pharmacies and traditional treatment therapies. Indirect competitors are firms that sell substitute products (Young & Pagoso, 2008). Many people buy over-the-counter drugs to treat various ailments.
Most people in Abu Dhabi seek medical help from hospitals to treat a recurring or serious health condition. This restricts the number of people who visit the hospital. Traditional treatment therapies includes several therapies that strive to meet the holistic needs of an individual to improve the health status. Traditional treatment’s holistic approach to health enables it to be popular among various people.
Competitor Analysis Table
Competitive Position
Competitive position refers to a company’s position in the market in relation to its competitors. Companies strive to use various positioning strategies to change the perception of its products among its target market. This helps in creating a unique position for the company (Fleisher & Bensoussan, 2007).
Therefore, it is vital for a company to conduct research to determine the perceptions of the target market on the company. This enables companies to pursue and defend their market share effectively. A company can either be a market leader, challenger, or follower. In addition, a company can also differentiate its products or services to become a marker nicher.
Burjeel Hospital is the biggest private tertiary healthcare facility in Abu Dhabi. It is the market leader in Abu Dhabi’s healthcare industry. It offers several high quality services that enable it to attract and retain clients.
The market dominance of the hospital enables it to use several strategies to defend its market share. It runs several promotional campaigns to improve defend its market share. In addition, it ensures that it offers high quality services to patients. This makes the patients become ambassadors of the hospital and engage in word of mouth advertisements.
Competitive Strategy
Burjeel Hospital uses differentiation and customer intimacy to gain a competitive edge over its rivals. Differentiation is one of the major strategies that companies use to gain a competitive edge over their rivals. Product-based differentiation is the most common differentiation strategy.
It involves the differentiation of a company’s product to differentiate it from products of rivals (Porter, 2008). Burjeel Hospital offers several complex medical or surgical procedures that are non-existent among its rivals. This attracts patients who need these complex surgical procedures. In addition, offering the complex surgical and medical procedures improves the hospital’s image among the target market.
Customer intimacy is one of the major methods that companies in the service intimacy use to attract and retain customers. Customer intimacy involves working with customers to understand their needs better than rivals (Ferrell, 2012). Burjeel Hospital strives to provide a conducive environment that would help patients on their road to recovery. In addition, it provides personalised attention to its patients. The hospital’s ‘art of healing’ philosophy enables it to appreciate patients’ needs.
Competitive Advantage
Burjeel Hospital has some of the most advanced diagnostic equipment and facilities in Abu Dhabi. It is an ultra-modern healthcare facility, which has been in operation since 2012. In addition, the hospital has world-class medical professionals. This enables it to provide high quality services to its patients, which enables it to attract more patients.
The number of treatment procedures that a healthcare facility offers determines its competitiveness in the industry. Burjeel Hospital offers several treatment procedures to its patients. This enables it to attract patients with various medical conditions. In addition, certain treatment procedures that it offers are not available in other hospitals in Abu Dhabi.
Conclusion
It is vital for companies to conduct a competitor analysis prior to the entry of a market. This enables it to formulate strategies that would help it gain a competitive edge over its rivals. Burjeel Hospital has successfully used several strategies to gain a competitive edge over its rivals in the industry.
It has state of the state-of-the-art facilities and highly advanced diagnostic equipment. This enables it to provide high quality services to its patients. In addition, the ‘art of healing’ philosophy of the hospital enables it to meet the healthcare needs of its customers. This enables Burjeel Hospital to tackle competition posed by Al Noor Hospital and Gulf Diagnostic Centre Hospital more effectively.
References
Ferrell, O.C. (2012). Marketing strategy text and cases. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.
Fleisher, C.S. & Bensoussan, B.E. (2007). Business and competitive analysis: Effective application of new and classic methods. Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT Press.
Porter, M.E. (2008). Competitive advantage: Creating and sustaining superior performance. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Young, F.C. & Pagoso, C.M. (2008). Principles of marketing. Manila: Rex Bookstore.