Branding: An Effective Tool to Achieve Competitive Advantage (A Study of Fortis Hospital, Jaipur)

One of the most commonly overlooked sources of competitive advantage is brand. Branding is not just advertising, neither it is simply a name for a company. The most important value in a brand is the value that it holds for customers. This value is very expensive and difficult to build-and fragile and easy to destroy.

According to Walter Landor, One of the leading experts of the advertising industry, “A brand is a promise. By identifying and authenticating a product or services it delivers a pledge of quality and satisfaction”. A brand is a collection of perceptions in customer's mind. Hence a brand is something that is intangible and lies in the mind of the customer.

This paper attempts to answer why branding is important for hospital sector and help them to attract new patients and retain the regular ones by satisfying them with the branded services provided and also suggest some concepts with the help of which healthcare industry can understand their potential to increase name recognition and achieve improved patient clarity which can be achieved when all elements of the health care industry are consistently branded. This further helps the hospital industry to achieve competitive advantage.