Bumrungrad presses ahead, others more cautious

At Bumrungrad Hospital, executives have taken the economic crisis as an opportunity to invest and expand its business.

Kennenth Mays, senior director, hospital marketing and business development, said the crisis presented opportunities for companies which have healthy finances and cash reserves, such as Bumrungrad.

The hospital can shop for strategically appropriate projects at discounted prices, and will continue to explore good deals in China, India and other markets.

"This is a good time for investment," he said.

Bumrungrad will also allocate budgets for international marketing and network expansion of overseas representative offices, as well as for using the Internet and other media channels to promote its services.

Mays said Bumrungrad had no plans to cut its investment budget this year. Most of the money will be used for renovation and expansion of its Bangkok facilities. In fact, it has accelerated some of these plans because it is a good time to upgrade floors and rooms without much disruption.

Bumrungrad targets revenue 2009 growth at 5 to 10 per cent, but that has to be coupled with a big caveat because nobody in recent times has experienced a world economy like the current one, he said.

Bumrungrad expects to have more than 400,000 foreign inpatients and outpatients this year, which would be about 35 to 40 per cent of it total patient numbers.

Taking a completely different tack, Wallop Adhikomprapa, president of Bangkok Dusit Medical Service, said the company would delay all major investments and wait to see how the economic situation develops in the current quarter.

"We have to control capital expenditure as much as we can and make a good bottom line. So, we will monitor the investment budget on a quarterly basis," he said.

Within Thailand, the company will only proceed with the construction of Bangkok Hospital Hua Hin.

Chatree Duangnet, CEO of Bangkok Hospital Medical Centre - a unit of Bangkok Dusit - earlier said it had decided to postpone indefinitely the plan to set up a second hospital worth Bt3 billion in Abu Dhabi, which had been scheduled to start construction this year. The project would benefit the company in the long term, as many Middle Eastern patients prefer to fly to Thailand for medical treatment.

Meanwhile, at Samitivej, there will be no major investments this year.

Raymond Chong, managing director and CEO of Samitivej Hospital, said the company would however open a rehabilitation centre at Samitivej Srinakarin. The facility will be the biggest such centre in eastern Bangkok.

This is the second of a two-part series. The first part was published yesterday.