The Waves of Philippine Business P. 5

Healthcare, the next wave

Last week I mentioned that the next wave for Philippine business could possibly be in the arena of healthcare. You may be wondering, healthcare? Didn't we just send off the last batch of graduating nurses abroad?

While the local healthcare system is certainly needing of more nurses, it makes sense - at least to me - that this is the plausible next wave for business opportunities. One must remember that healthcare is a very very broad word that carries with it a lot of sub-industries. Which is why it's worth noting them down.

Let me name them -

Health Insurance
Health Products
Health (ier) Foods
Hospital Care
Nursing Home
Cheaper Medicines
Medicinal Alternatives

In fact, healthcare may also encompass other industries like dermatology clinics and the booming wellness clinics like spas. With that in mind though, it seems that I am again, behind the curve.

Better Late than Never

Yet, sometimes being behind the curve has its benefits. If you're the pioneer in a certain industry, you almost always have bigger challenges to surmount. This means then, that you also have to have more capital and tons more amounts of perseverance, to survive. Of course, the flipside is that the returns are much higher. The reason is that you have to teach your target market and to acquaint them, and to convince them that they need your product / service.

This brings to mind Smart Money. Smart Money was launched sometime in the earlier part of this century, and to my knowledge, it flunked. This year, they relaunched the product with heavy TV advertising. I wonder if it's made inroads already into the psyche of Filipino consumers. I think that mobile commerce is a lucrative business (more on this in a future post), but right now, the market is still small.

The critical base - the masa crowd, believe it or not, are important in sustaining any business. Consumer goods companies need them to survive. SM needs them to survive. Tutuban and 168 Mall needs them to survive. Since a majority still dont have access to Internet in their homes, it will take more time for mobile commerce companies to really fly in this country.

The other market for mobile commerce - the middle class market - would be a good target market. But in my opinion, I think they are just not ready yet for mobile commerce. Besides, the supposedly cheaper prices of Internet cannot match the vastness of the catalogue (and of course price) of products found in Divisoria. People still brave the horrendous traffic and pickpocketers just to find a good bargain. Moreover, you can't try on a shirt or a pair of shoes on the net now can you?

What am I trying to drive at here?

While using Smart Money alone as an example is not a good indicator, I am relying here on pure gut feel. A gut feel that tells me that being the first isn't always the brightest idea. Especially for an SME entrepreneur.

As you can see, being the first may have its advantages; however, it also brings with it a confounding set of problems. Being behind the curve, albeit not too behind, will allow you to cash in on a certain market without having to put up an insane amount of capital.

Business Cycle

Business will always come in cycles, no matter what an optimistic economist may say otherwise. The current housing problem in the United States is nothing extraordinary, you can't keep on buying houses. There's got to be a plateau at a certain stage. It's what businesses do during the plateau stage that ensures its survival.

The business cycle usually comes in four stages. The infancy stage, the growth stage, the maturity stage and the decline stage. The length of time per stage depends on business to business, industry to industry. Apart from that, you have to know also if there is a decline stage at all for a particular industry.

So far, the telecoms industry is in a prolonged maturity stage. I doubt that there'd be a decline stage in the foreseeable future. People need to communicate. The decline stage though, will come for a particular type of technology. Like how pagers were wiped out from the face of the earth with the entry of the more compact mobile phone.

More in my next enry. Thanks for dropping by!

** I'm posting later than Friday, for that I apologize. I'm busy doing something right now and I have to prioritize them over my blogging. Thanks for dropping by :-)