Product-Sharing is the new Product Sourcing Strategy

 With the birth of the sharing economy product owners are now making profits and renters are getting to use products at a lower cost. Using medical products on a short-term basis for a fraction of the price is the new game of product sourcing strategy. No medical professional wants to be owning any expensive medical equipment in this era of economic uncertainty, instead they want to rent instead of own. The reality is that when medical professionals realize that they can share medical equipment, they will not buy anymore. Peer-to-peer sharing is a win-win situation in the medical industry. It is replacing the mindset of buying a product slowly. Collaborative usage of medical equipment is where Doctors and other medical professionals make decisions whether to buy or rent products. Medical personnel or organizations that own medical equipment are able to generate income from renting their products to non-owners while non-owners are able to access these products through renting on a needed basis. 

Recent technological advancements in online and mobile communications have enabled product sharing among customers on a major scale. Online businesses such as Airbnb and Uber are companies built on the concept of peer-to-peer product sharing. Product sharing has emerged as a trend due to the economic recession looms as a result of COVID-19. Medical Technologists as well as other healthcare workers are exploring more efficient use of resources and products in the midst of the pandemic. A customer who buys a product can derive several usage strategies over different periods. In a period of low usage, the customer can rent his or her product on any of the online product sharing platforms.

Medical Equipment-Sharing

 Most medical equipment tend to be very expensive and medical professionals oftentimes opt to lease or finance these devices instead of buying them with cash. Just imagine how much it would cost a Doctor to purchase a CT Scanner, MRI and Ultrasound machine out of his or her pocket all at once. This is highly unlikely in most cases since Loans and Rentals are most times what hospitals use to obtain the most up-to-date and high tech medical equipment. Manufacturers of these medical devices tend to work closely with financial institutions to help customers finance the purchase of these medical equipment using debt. Medical Laboratory equipment such as hematology and/or chemistry analyzers are also very costly and in most instances they are leased or even subleased. The sharing economy is taking precedence in the medical industry since most healthcare workers do not want to take on the long-term responsible of owning medical equipment but are more willing to rent medical devices on a short term basis. 

Most salespeople in Laboratory Medicine who sell medical equipment also provide customers with financing or rental options. It is a guarantee that 80% of Medical Laboratory Equipment sold is via financing through a Loan or via leasing/rental. Health professionals are now focusing on how fast they can scale their business, hence using sharing and rental services are more attractive to the entrepreneur who wants to expand fast. From office-sharing to home-sharing to equipment-sharing, we can see how the medical industry is becoming more integrated into the sharing economy. Medical Equipment-Sharing is the future and will be more popularized via the internet.

Medical Home-Sharing

Patients have always been seeking better and/or more affordable healthcare in other countries. In some cases, a particular medical treatment may not be available in their country and patients are required to travel overseas in order to get treatment. This reality has existed from the beginning of healthcare and will continue after the COVID-19 pandemic has passed. The structure and medium through which medical tourism is facilitated will be different and now it will rely heavily on the internet. Internet companies such as Airbnb and Homestay has changed a lot of the structure of the travel industry and most tourists are seeking affordable accommodations from homeowners more often than from hoteliers. After COVID-19, an airbnb for medical tourism will allow qualified medical professionals to act as hosts that accommodate patients as their guests. These medical professionals will have to adapt a strategy of operating a medical hotel instead of just a mere medical center or hospital. This is the strategy that will take medical tourism into the future after the year 2020. Gav-Med Solutions intends to be a part of this revolution and will share ideas through this blog that will keep everyone informed about real estate trends and how it will affect medical tourism in the future. A new venture called Gav-Inn is being developed that will focus on creating medical homes and combine real estate and the internet to better meet patients needs via medical tourism.

Traveling within the borders of your own country in order to access better healthcare is also a form of medical tourism. A patient does not have to buy a ticket from an airline and travel overseas in order to be considered a medical tourist. Simply taking a taxi from a rural district to access healthcare in an urban area is a form of medical tourism. If a medical laboratory test is not available in one area of a country and you have to travel to another area of the country to get your medical laboratory test done, then that is medical tourism. Airbnb has leveled the playing field for homeowners to operate like hoteliers and now with medical tourism, all medical professionals can operate like hospitals. This is a new era of medical real estate and medical tourism which will be revolutionized by the internet.

Medical Laboratory-Sharing

The sharing economy has changed how capitalistic societies operate and now more persons are renting instead of buying. This is evident in every industry but more so in areas such as commercial and residential real estate. Uber is an example of the peer to peer age that we now live in where technology is disrupting a lot of industries such as the taxi industry in the case of Uber. Airbnb has evolved as a home-sharing company which was valued at $38B in 2018 and Wework has evolved as a office-sharing company which was valued at $47B in 2019. None of these two companies own any real estate but make money from other people's property. Airbnb operates as a broker by receiving commission for booking of lodging arrangements, primarily homestays or other tourism experiences. Wework operates by long-term leasing of office space, renovating and furnishing the space and subleasing divided workspaces to their members. Their members include freelancers, startups, entrepreneurs and small businesses that do short-term rentals. This type of business model is referred to as rent arbitrage which is how Wework built itself into owning more than 150 locations worldwide and 500,000 members. Wework also has a venture called Welive which operates with the same business model but applies it to rental apartments instead of office spaces.

Similarly, medical laboratories can operate with this concept of rent arbitrage if it is properly orchestrated. Simply, one would lease a major commercial space on a long-term basis and divide it into small medical laboratories that are already furnished with medical laboratory equipment and all the necessary accessories for operation then rent the workspace to medical technologists on a short-term basis. Instead of starting a medical laboratory from scratch by finding a location, furnishing the location, insuring the location, branding and advertising the location, the medical technologist would simply "Rent-A-Lab". It is as simple as it sounds, and its the beauty of rent arbitrage and how it works as a real estate strategy that benefits all parties involved. Another simple Medical Laboratory- sharing strategy is offering your medical laboratory blood testing services to countless blood collection locations for a percentage of the cost for each blood test. 

Gav-Med Labs intends to implement this strategy based on the scalability of the idea and how all parties can benefit. Rent arbitrage is what allows anyone to use real estate to build businesses by subletting the space to other tenants. Just like home-sharing and office-sharing, medical laboratory-sharing can use this strategy to its advantage. This would aid more medical technologists to become entrepreneurs and salespeople and reduce the cost of starting medical laboratory. A medical technologist can rent a lab for a day, a week or even a month on the short-term basis. There will be more entrepreneurs and salespeople in the field of Laboratory Medicine and some will also take advantage of mobile phlebotomy to get more sales in laboratory medicine. This idea is built on the concept of "Rent-A-Lab" and will be the real estate investment strategy of the future.

Work without pay and hustle for FREE

Working without pay and hustling for FREE will be one solution to this economic contraction that currently exists because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unemployment numbers will only increase as businesses are being forced to close their doors as well as implement social distancing and quarantine measures. Working from home is now the new norm and persons that have lost their jobs should be willing to work without pay and hustle for free. Your passion and willingness to expand your brand and business should push you to work. Selling a product should not be done only for the monetary gain during this economic recession. SALES should be seen as a means to make people know your name, brand and business. This historical era will be the rebirth of entrepreneurs and business owners who will build businesses on the principles of freeconomics such as free trial, freemium and free with ads.

As an employee, you should be willing to work without pay and as an entrepreneur, you should be willing to hustle for FREE. Work is what builds economies and should be done in order to maintain mental and physical health of people. Once you are out of work, it affects your body and mind negatively. Mental health and physical health are the major concerns of the government since the economic lockdown which has laid off many, quarantined many and forced many to work from home.

 If you are an employee, now is the time to act like an entrepreneur and salesperson. In the Laboratory Medicine industry, simple businesses can be formed such as Medical Media, Medical Cleaning and Medical Delivery. These are easy products and services to sell. The sales process involves a three step sales conversation: 1) This is my product, 2) This is my price; 3) Will you buy from me? WORK FOR FREE!

Shift to FREEconomics

Freeconomics is a business model in which the product is offered for FREE of charge and supported by sales of a premium version. This form of business model will dominate the market in this economic contraction using three systems: Free trial, Freemium and Free with ads. The COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest economic depression that the world has ever seen. Medical Business ideas that will flourish after the COVID-19 pandemic will cause a rebirth of entrepreneurship from the year 2020 onwards. Working remotely is now an economic reality for many and several millions of people are now out of a job and searching for ways to make a living. Home-based online businesses are now becoming more accepted as a solution to this calamity that the world is facing.

FREEconomics is a Must! It is the only economic shift that will help most businesses to survive this recession. It is the ideal tactic for brand awareness, marketing and sales. The rise of freeconomics is powered by the technologies that form and dominate the internet. Typical examples include Google and Facebook which are mega companies that offer their products for FREE. Revenue is generated using advertisements while their audience uses their online platform for education or entertainment. The internet is the birth of freeconomics and the cost of digital data is rapidly getting closer and closer to zero.

Five businesses that you can start in the Laboratory Medicine industry after the COVID-19 pandemic include: Medical Transportation, Medical Delivery, Medical Cleaning, Medical Waste Disposal and Medical Laboratory. All of these business ideas are connected to Laboratory Medicine. Medical Transportation and Medical Delivery requires a reliable motor vehicle while Medical Cleaning and Medical Waste Disposal requires cleaning products such as alcohol, bleach, gloves, paper towel and garbage bags (biohazard). These are simple businesses which apply the KISS (keep it simple stupid) principle to LABORATORY MEDICINE.

Make everything FREE

In these harsh economic times, it is important for companies to build value with customers and build brand awareness. An excellent way to build value with customers is to "make everything FREE", which simply means, as much as possible serve customers with no charge. If it is a subscription business, then you can do this using three business models namely: free trial, freemium and free with ads. These businesses are built to create value in the front end and then eventually charge in the back end. All businesses are created to be revenue generating machines and most entrepreneurs are reluctant in giving away products and services for FREE. Luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Mercedes Benz or Disney World are currently losing millions per day because of the economic shutdown from COVID-19. This creates a level playing field for all companies to use e-commerce to reignite their sales flame and make money online. "Make everything FREE" which means instead of selling your product, give it away. This is how a company builds brand awareness in the midst of a pandemic that is reshaping how businesses are operated.

Yes, I do talk about SALES a lot, but giving away your product is also a form of selling. It is about selling your brand and making the world aware of what your business stands for. SALES is not always monetary, it can be as simple as convincing someone else about your idea. 

This leads to the solution for this problem of businesses shutting down and viruses on the loose. Some health professionals are even analysing whether the economic shutdown or the virus will have the greater effect on the health of the human race. The economic shutdown is certainly going to affect the mental health of many and the virus is certainly affecting the physical health of many. The question is "which of the two is worse?" Making everything FREE will help with your spiritual health for sure. Giving back to the community is always a spiritual and religious act which also helps with the mental health of any nation. It is also good for business! Gav-Med Membership is FREE!