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Customer Segmentation & Opportunities in ISMs

The current atmosphere of rapid consumerism and the recent trend of going ‘organic’
in urban centres of India has brought a new wave of opportunities in reframing the role
of ‘alternative’ healthcare and expanding its reach to the urban Indian. The internet, as
a space for social interaction, entertainment and guidance plays a huge role in the
perception of healthcare systems in the urban Indian context. However, ISMs are not
very forward with using it as an opportunity to build systems of trust. The busy, urban
lifestyle is an opportunity in itself to make ISM more ergonomically viable. A large
section of users of ISM are senior citizens, so there is a massive opportunity for making
it more relevant to their lives. Health-conscious parents with previous experience in
using ISM bring their children for the same treatment, and this is a real opportunity to
build trust systems.

Across all of the above age groups, ISM is seen to be especially effective in treating
chronic illnesses. This makes ISM all the more relevant to the urban Indian context,
given the growing influence of urban lifestyles on chronic and non-communicable
diseases. Hence, the proposed system or service could highlight and accentuate this
unique benefit of ISM over allopathy to the potential and current users of ISM. This
would provide a fair share of focus on ISM’s unique values and thereby enhance the
chances for effective integration of these systems of medicine into the Indian health-
care system. In terms of the user’s economic demographics, systems and services that
reach out to the lower-middle class of society would create a “trickle-up innovation”
effect on the systems of trust in ISM. ‘...These reverse innovations are an important
opportunity for learning and building capacity for leading change that has the poten-
tial to optimize resource use while also finding innovative approaches to deliver health
services in a cost effective, sustainable manner.’ (Snowdon 2015)