The Role of Integrating Customer-Orientation View in product Development to Sustain Competitive Advantage. A case study in the digital healthcare industry
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Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Program
Entrepreneurship and business design (MPBDP), MSc
Publicerad
2021
Författare
Jahankhah, Pegah
Hermez, Rama
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
The healthcare sector in Sweden is undergoing a transition driven by digitalization, increased
demand, and COVID-19. Receiving healthcare has traditionally been through physical contact
between doctor and patient, but digital healthcare apps have changed the contact form. These apps
allow patients to easily schedule visits and interact with doctors without geographical and time
limitations. Today, the customers have access to more information and control over their decision
and can easily switch to other alternatives which increases the competition in the digital healthcare
market. However, little is known about this market in general and how the transitioning from
physical to digital healthcare is shifting the power from doctor to patients.
This study aims to investigate what are key sources of competitive advantage in this market and
how digital healthcare companies in Sweden implement customer orientation into their product
development to sustain competitive advantage in the market. To find this out, semi-structured
interviews were conducted with five major Swedish digital healthcare companies. A theoretical
framework was developed based on a literature review about competitive advantage and customer
orientation to be then analyzed and discussed together with the empirical findings.
Findings show that the competition in the digital healthcare market is high and innovative services
can easily be imitated. Additionally, setting a low price can not either be used as a differentiation
strategy to attract customers due to the high regulation from the government. Therefore, innovation
and price differentiation are not the sources of competitive advantage in this market. Instead,
customer satisfaction is a crucial source to sustain competitive advantage. This thesis identified five
factors that companies focus on to increase customer satisfaction: accessibility and visibility,
targeting a specific customer group, minimizing the queue time, service quality, service design, and
trust. Digital healthcare companies try to gain an understanding of customers through collecting
data with different measurement systems. The data is then used to enhance product development
based on customer needs which increase customer satisfaction. We outline how two different
measurement methods, traditional, interviews and technical which include in-app interactions,
analytics, and algorithmic, are used as distinct methods by companies to collect data that help the
companies learn about the customers, thus improving and developing more customized services for
the customers. This thesis contributes to understanding how the digital transition in the healthcare industry is
changing the competition on the market and the importance of customers in this shift to develop
competitive products.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Competitive Advantage, Customer-Orientation, Porter’s Five Forces, Customer Satisfaction, Digital Healthcare Industry, Measurement System