Setting up of a greenfield veterinary hospital

A charity trust was looking to set up a veterinary hospital, particularly to serve the needs of the farmer community. The trust required research assistance in

• Demand and financial feasibility assessment
• Business models: They were unaware of the possible business models for setting up and operating a veterinary hospital
• Location analysis: The client had the required land available at two different locations but could not make a decision on where to set up the hospital

ValueNotes scoured the landscape to understand the unmet needs and best practices followed

ValueNotes used a combination of secondary and primary sources to gather the requisite information. However, given that there was virtually no documented information on cattle health and veterinary hospitals, ValueNotes engaged in extensive discussions with all the various stakeholders in the veterinary hospital.

In-depth interviews were conducted with veterinary hospitals, veterinary doctors and hospital management consultants to understand operating and revenue generation models.

The tricky aspect was to get on-the-ground information on the unmet demands of cattle owners in remote locations. ValueNotes was able to build a rapport with the farmers and obtain valuable insights by conducting ethnographic interviews and communicating with them in their local dialects.

We evaluated the possible locations on the basis of:

– Cattle population in the vicinity

– Availability of veterinary hospitals in the region

– Ease of access of the cattle owners to the nearest veterinary hospital

– Unmet demands of the farmers/ cattle owners in the region

ValueNotes research helped the client optimise their investment to serve the needs of the farmers

ValueNotes provided actionable insights into the needs of cattle owners and recommended the best operational model for providing veterinary services to them. Based on our recommendations, the client chose to set up small mobile unit hospitals, to reach a larger number of cattle owners in the location recommended by us.