Samsung Medical Centre

PROJECT

Samsung Medical Centre (SMC) is a state of the art 2,000 bed hospital associated with Sungkyunkwan University. It is such a prestigious private hospital that it has a grand piano and pianist in the five storey vaulted lobby. The 11 storey, 200,000m² building houses a 1,350 bed general hospital, a 650 bed cancer centre, research facilities and outpatients.  Over 7,400 staff are employed at the hospital.

In 2011, B&P was engaged to develop a new retail strategy for the hospital. The hospital had been lagging in customer satisfaction rankings in relation to its retail and the Hospital Director set a goal to raise the retail standards to world class.

Importantly, B&P was appointed not because we were experienced in Korea, but because our track record of innovating F&B concepts and our structured analysis process gave Samsung utmost confidence that we would deliver an outstanding result.

TASK

• B&P organised an extensive patient, outpatient and staff survey, car park entry study and people mapping exercise to inform the retail strategy.
• This data was coupled with a world wide benchmarking study on hospital retail to establish ratios, mixes and quantities.
• The data was fed into the B&P analysis process which also considered the current retail performance, design review, detailed segmentation of the hospital population and the surrounding competition.

OUTCOME

The strategy produced by B&P:
• Re-apportioned the area dedicated to retail between the General Hospital and Cancer Centre based on population nodes and circulation.
• Justified in a business case the investment in new vertical transport to access basement retail to improve sales.
• Introduced a new food court with a mix of higher demand cuisines and quicker service system to better suit the time poor highest use market segment – outpatients.
• Highlighted healthier and healing foods in the tenancy mix.
• Re-located various F&B and service retail based on it’s impulse or destination status to drive impulse sales and increase customer strike rates.
• Identified ways to expand the retail foot print on the high traffic entry as the single outlet on this level was over trading but not actually coping with the demand potential.
• Identified ways to expand the retail footprint without comprising health service space requirements by cleverly enclosing voids.
• Expanded the convenience store to include a far greater range of fresh and semi-prepared foods.

The results have been extraordinary, with the new retail offering being embraced by all target markets and retail sales doubling immediately the full new retail offer was delivered.