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Market sizing

Healthcare Market sizing
New answer on May 28, 2022
2 Answers
1.3 k Views
Anonymous A asked on May 25, 2022

Hello, 

Any suggestions on how to solve how many hospital beds are there in a hospital as a market sizing exercise? (to convert the number of patients into hospital beds) 

Thanks! 

(edited)

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Ian
Expert
Content Creator
replied on May 25, 2022
#1 BCG coach | MBB | Tier 2 | Digital, Tech, Platinion | 100% personal success rate (8/8) | 95% candidate success rate

Hi there,

You'll get the best out of this exercise if you try it yourself and post here for feedback.

Here's a hint: Visualize the hospital

How to think about Market Sizing

It's very simple: Do the approach the is the easiest for you given the question.

Are they asking you to estimate something where you don't even know where to begin from the top (maybe you have 0 clue as to the market size of the industry, the GDP of that country, etc. etc.)? Then do bottom-up!

Alternatively, does it seem impossible to do a realistic from-the-ground-up estimation of something (perhaps it requires just far too many steps and assumptions)? Then do top-down!

Fundamentally, you need to take the approach that just makes the most sense in that circumstance. Quickly think about the key assumptions / numbers required and whether you 1) Know them or 2) Can reasonably estimate them. If you can, go ahead!

Remember that there's rarely a "best" answer with market sizing. What's important is that you break down the problem the way it makes sense to you. Importantly, break it down so that the assumptions you make are the ones you're most comfortable in.

For example, do you know all the major brands? Great go with that. Do you understand all the segments of that country's population (either age or wealth or job breakdown)? Go with that. Do you know the total market size of the tourism (or hotel) industry? Then break it down that way.

Some tips:

  1. Just like in a case, make sure you understand the question - what are you really being asked to calculate
  2. Decide whether a top-down or bottom-up approach is best
  3. Figure out what you know you know, and what you know you don't know, but could estimate
    1. This helps you determine how to split out buckets
  4. Stay flexible - you can start with a "high-level" market sizing, but gauge your interviewers reaction....if it looks like they want you to do more...then go along level deeper in terms of your splits

An Example

Take a look here for additional practice! https://www.preplounge.com/en/management-consulting-cases/brain-teaser/intermediate/taxis-in-manhattan-market-sizing-229

And here's a practice Q&A:

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/how-would-you-solve-this-market-sizing-question-from-roland-berger-7631

This one could be answered top-down (as I did) by estimating population of the city, # of drivers/ cars, etc. etc.

OR, it could be answered bottom-up by estimating # of stations you see per block (or # of gas/petrol tanks), % increase this might be over time (or # of EV stations that would be needed per gas tank given EV stations take 10 times as long), and # of blocks you'd estimate the city to have.

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Anonymous A on May 25, 2022

Hi Ian, Thank you for the advice! If we already know the number of hospital visits per year in a specific country (let's say 3M) and we estimate that each patient stays around a week. So we're going to need 3M hospital beds per year. We also estimate that there are 150 hospitals in this country so 3M/150= 20,000 hospital beds per hospital (this is where I am stuck because a hospital could have around 200 beds and not 20,000). my estimation here gave me the number of beds needed but not the number of beds available..

Ian on May 26, 2022

First of all you're really overcomplicating this. Why are you estimating *ALL* of the beds required in a country only to divide by # of hospitals. This is an illogical approach...you're randomly guessing numbers which is not how market sizing works. This is a "bottom up" exercise...just think of x hospital and estimate by # of floors, etc. If you insist on doing it your way (which will result in a poor interview performance), then you need to assume a utilization rate. I'd highly recommend a coaching session to get your thinking/approach correct!

Udayan
Expert
Content Creator
replied on May 28, 2022
Top rated Case & PEI coach/Multiple real offers/McKinsey EM in New York /6 years McKinsey recruiting experience

One simple approach to this question :

  • First estimate hospital size using say patient visits
  • Then estimate number of patients that will require outpatient vs inpatient care based on parameters like what type of hospital it is, where it is located, what type of patients most frequent it etc.
    • Use that to calculate how many patients need a bed 
  • Then see for inpatient care what is the average duration they are in the hospital for
    • Use that to calculate how many beds will satisfy patient demand in an average night

Hope this helps,

Udayan

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