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De Ambulante dierenarts
De Ambulante Dierenarst
Liberal profession
Liberal profession
Belgium
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Service, time, knowledge and mobility
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Sven Dhanijns
Guyllian De Beule
Sven Dhanijns
Summary
Already existing in the Netherlands, England and America, a mobile veterinarian is fairly new to the Belgian society. “De Ambulante Dierenarts” is one of the first veterinarians who practices this in Flanders, Belgium. “De Ambulante Dierenarts” can be directly translated in English; The Ambulant Veterinarian, and is self-explanatory. The Ambulant Veterinarian does everything what a normal veterinarian does, but instead of the clients coming to a practice, The Ambulant Veterinarian has his whole practice on four wheels and goes to the client. The van of The Ambulant Veterinarian is equipped as a normal practice where Sven Dhanijns, the veterinarian behind the concept, can conduct his profession.
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The Ambulant Veterinarian is a little more expensive than the normal veterinarian, but the clients get a lot more service and the best of all, your animal will be more relaxed in its familiar surroundings and the veterinarian can spend more time on your precious animal.
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A liberal profession as a veterinarian can’t be compared to a normal corporate company, this because the differential factor in this profession is the veterinarian himself, Sven Dhanijns. Sven differs himself form other veterinarians based on service, time, knowledge and of course mobility.
Background
The Ambulant Veterinarian was founded by Sven Dhanijns in January 2016. After three years of experience as a veterinarian in a big and highly educational practice, he wanted to launch his own. But this requires high investments and it is hard to compete with the existing veterinarians in the neighborhood. The already settled veterinarians in a city or municipality already have a vast customer base which causes a saturation of the veterinarian business. If you start as a normal veterinarian, with an immovable practice, you’ll need a lot of financial means to invest in a building, equipment,… and wouldn’t still be able to really differentiate yourself from the other veterinarians. So, Sven wanted to start his own practice, but with a lower initial investment and a higher differ enation factor. Sven started thinking and noticed that in neighboring countries a mobile veterinarian was already implemented in the society, so he concluded: “Why not in Belgium?” and The Ambulant Veterinarian was born. This concept was financed with primarily own financial means supplemented with a small loan.
Mission
Serve the health of animals with the highest quality, passion and comfort for the client and animal.
Vision
Combine The Ambulant Veterinarian with an immovable practice to further develop the service towards clients and animals.
Values
Quality, Customer satisfaction and passion.
Business Model
The biggest revenue stream is being generated with consultations of clients, this accounts for 70%-80% of the turnover. As mentioned before, a consultation of The Ambulant Veterinarian is slightly more expensive than going to an immovable practice. Specifically, The Ambulant Veterinarian charges 40,00 EUR for a consultation. The average price for a consultation in East-Flanders in an immovable practice is around 28,00 EUR, as you see, a little less expensive. Nevertheless the fact that The Ambulant Veterinarian is a little more expensive, the service that The Ambulant Veterinarian offers cannot be compared to a normal one, it is way better adapted to the customer’s and animal’s needs.
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The remaining 20% to 30% of revenue is generated by selling medication, but Sven stated that the gross margins on medication are rather small. The Ambulant Veterinarian sells medication in its van, which is another big service for the clients. This goes as far from antibiotics to anti-inflammatories. With big animals, the medication generates an important part of revenue, with smaller ones it’s more of an extra service, due to the low margins as mentioned before.
Growth
The growth of The Ambulant Veterinarian will translate itself in either continuing solely being mobile or a combination of an immovable practice and The Ambulant Veterinarian. In the far future, The Ambulant Veterinarian will start looking to hire personnel to learn young veterinarians the art of the profession and further upscale the service to clients.
Customers
Competitors
Every domestic animal owner.
Liberal professions are very competitive towards each other, especially in the veterinarian business. The old generation of veterinarians already has its solid customer base and is very dominant towards new veterinarians. Therefore, they are also towards The Ambulant Veterinarian, but the immovable practices are indirect competition because The Ambulant Veterinarian offers a services they can’t compete with; the practice being mobile.
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Nevertheless, The Ambulant Veterinarian has some direct competitors. In nearly every province, there is a veterinarian who is partial ambulant for its clients, but not as their main activity. For The Ambulant Veterinarian, being ambulant is its main activity meaning Sven goes a step further than the others. By doing this, The Ambulant Veterinarian is able to offer an outstanding service to its clients.
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Sven is convinced that other mobile or ambulant veterinarians will arise in the coming years. This because this is a perfect way for a young veterinarian to start with a lower initial investment and lower risk.
Conclusion
To conclude, The Ambulant Veterinarian has high potential and will definitely serve as a base for Sven’s further development as a veterinarian. The biggest threat for Sven is that, as a starting veterinarian, you need to invest a lot and pay off equipment that is needed to conduct the profession. Mostly, in the veterinarian sector, a starting veterinarian doesn’t make any profit in the first five years. But with The Ambulant Veterinarian, Sven does, and this is due to the genius idea of offering ambulant services as a veterinarian.
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A very big downside for Sven is that due to the fact that being a veterinarian is a liberal profession, promotion is forbidden. Only an announcement at the start that his services are being offered is allowed. Lastly, Sven gives the advice to young entrepreneurs that you need to fully believe in yourself and your company/concept in order to succeed, you need to work as much and hard as you can.