Competing with Amazon in Health Care Supplies
July 06, 2017
It seems that no industry is safe from Amazon — the company is now expanding into health care. Using its expertise in sales and delivery along with a reputation for excellent service, Amazon will likely be bringing pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies to its customers.
Signs Amazon Is Ready to Take On Health Care
Rumors have long circulated that the next step for Amazon is to enter health care, but this year it looks ever more likely. In June, Amazon started a promotion providing a Prime discount to those with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance benefits and United States Electronics Benefits Transfer cards.
Furthermore, Amazon supports Orbita, providing Alexa for its voice-activated technology. Orbita recently joined forces with Lenovo Health to release a health care manager that, among other capabilities, provides support with medication.
The Advantages of Amazon
Amazon is a household name. Consumers already use the company for a wide variety of purchases and enjoy the experience. Amazon is a company they can trust and rely on — and when it comes to medical supplies, timely delivery is especially important. In fact, many consumers would prefer to see more Amazon in their lives. Half the consumers surveyed in the 2016 Aflac Open Enrollment study said they would prefer their health insurance exchange to resemble Amazon.
How Medical Suppliers Can Survive
The only way to compete with the retail giant to improve efficiency and bring customers medical supplies as fast as Amazon. This will allow you to retain current customers and even continue to expand.
However, for many businesses, particularly SMBs, this is a challenge. Amazon has the infrastructure to deliver to customers globally in as little as a few hours. The company knows how to optimize productivity in deliveries by planning routes that enable drivers to visit a maximum number of clients in a single journey.
The Solution for Small Businesses
Even small businesses can offer the same quality delivery service as Amazon. To reduce costs, you need a route planner that tells you how to visit all your customers each day.
With MyRouteOnline, you can import all your destinations from an Excel spreadsheet. MyRouteOnline calculates all the potential routes and shows you just the most efficient. If you have several drivers, it can generate multiple routes, even telling you which destination is best for each route.
After you gain all your routes for the day in just seconds, you can email your drivers. All they need is the MyRoute app on their mobile devices and it will sync to their favorite navigation app.
Now is the ideal time to start using MyRoute: before the competition from Amazon has time to take off. Show your customers that you are able to provide a high-quality service and they will never even consider switching to a different company for their medical supply needs.
