As part of its strategic move to significantly penetrate the underpenetrated Nigeria market and presents a massive opportunity for disruption to startups that can use the right mix of technology innovation and smarter operations, MeCure Healthcare Nigeria Limited, recently introduced MeCure SmartBuy, a complete healthcare mobile app that offers free teleconsultation with doctors and home delivery of medicines anywhere in Nigeria.
The app which is available on both Android and iOS smartphones, has hit more than 50,000 user registrations and thousands of orders nationwide in less than 6 months of its introduction, while it has also got partnerships with HMOs and corporate institutions across the country.
To continue its growth momentum after clocking 50,000 users, the diagnostic company said its now targeting the B2B segment through tie-ups with Health Maintenance Organisations (HMOs), hospitals and corporate institutions by offering them attractive discounts on medicines for their customers and employees. So far, it has already started pilot operations with more than 10 organisations and is in various stages of discussions with several more.
According to a press statement made available by Dr Adekunle Megbuwawon, chief medical officer at the company, MeCure Smartbuy is already a leading diagnostic brand in Lagos for the last 10 years and it already has amazing partnerships with most of the HMOs and big corporate institutions for diagnostic services for years now.
He added, “With MeCure SmartBuy we leverage this existing relationship and provide additional value to all of our clients by taking care of medication needs for their employees or end consumers. Consider this, as a responsible organisation you would want your employees and customers to have access to genuine medication at an affordable price, right?
Nigeria is already infamous for counterfeit drugs and furthermore, the pricing and availability is highly volatile, but with MeCure SmartBuy, all of these concerns are addressed because we offer genuine drugs at a flat discount with doorstep delivery! It is technically a no-brainer for our clients and hence we are witnessing rapid growth.”
“The pace of growth also comes with its own set of challenges from a tech and operations perspective. I remember at one point I think somewhere in June, we were receiving around 4000+ signups in a single day. It was a crazy time for our tech team, as we had to ensure our network infrastructure could scale and support this huge spike in traffic. While we did run into some minor issues, it gave us a clear indicator with regards to the demand for our offering and validated the magnitude of the problem that we are trying to solve”.
Also speaking from the release, Adil Shaikh, chief technology officer, in charge of MeCure Smartbuy, said “from the time an order is placed on the app till the time our delivery agent hands over the medication to the customer, we track each and every interaction minutely. We can track the exact location for each of our delivery agents in real-time. This helps us understand bottlenecks and optimize our operations on a daily basis, while constant feedback from our customers is also helping us improve and expand our offerings. Tech is only an enabler, executing to delight the customer is key, so if you look at our reviews from customers on the app stores you will understand how seriously we pay attention to detail. If your customer is not happy, nothing else matters.” he said.
He added that the app is available through their website www.mecuresmartbuy.com and users can also search for “MeCure SmartBuy” on the Android and iOS stores through their phone to download it. He, however, added that the app uses a geo-fence to only allow registrations from Lagos at the moments.
