Beating the commoditization of healthcare products in India

Abstract

Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is gaining importance amongst the hospital management in India. Increasing incidences of IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) and IUF (In Utro Fertilization) in India is one of the most important growth drivers for the NICU care. Rising awareness in the masses about the availability of such high dependency life saving facilities is leading to higher demand for such facilities driving growth for these equipments in India. According to Mr. V. Raja, President and CEO, GE Healthcare South Asia, Maternal and Infant Care (MIC) segment is expected to contribute $30 million to GE Healthcare from the local Indian market. GE Healthcare has a wide range of comprehensive products to offer for the NICU and is the market leader in U.S. in this product segment. However in India, the market for these products is highly fragmented and is predominantly dominated by the Indian made products. The market for these products in India is highly price sensitive and hence GE Healthcare is unable to gain considerable amount of market share in these segments in India. Despite entering into the local market, the strategy is also to export the products to Europe, Latin America, Gulf and the Asian markets. In order to compete with the local manufacturers in India, GE Healthcare should focus on new product development, continue acquiring companies that augment its product lines or that enable them to set footprint into the respective markets. It should continue to focus on the large and medium hospitals and develop Value for Money products that fill the gap between the Premium and Low2Price segments. GE Healthcare should also actively focus of developing product lines that could be readily marketed to both premium and value markets by de-featuring of the premium products.