Healthcare and Education are fundamental services necessary for society and basic human rights. Traditionally, the state has provided these social infrastructure services, regarded as public goods. However, the private sector in both these industries has stepped up to accelerate change and implement effective and lasting solutions.
Innovation, policy change, funding, and technologies are transforming these two sectors similarly, and some lessons and experiences are mirrored between them. The same issues of resistance to change, cultural, regulatory, access, and cost, along with the challenges, exist.
Hearth Advisors addresses some critical challenges in the sectors for businesses, policymakers, researchers, institutions, and investors.
Power of the brand
In education and healthcare, a strong brand comforts consumers and creates an expectation of quality. Industry validation, academic and published materials, and evidence of results influence consumption and buy-in to a company’s brand. However, this does not necessarily imply that ‘borrowing’ or partnering with a brand is the right strategy for an institution or an enterprise. Sometimes, building a new brand is the correct way to proceed.
For-Profit or Not-for-Profit
While social infrastructure provision is dominantly charitable and focused on providing social value, there are increasing investments in the education and healthcare sectors that can be profitable for investors and innovators while providing social benefits and services to lower-income households. Often, public sector dominance or governmental provision in a social sector, aligned with suitable regulation, allows private capital to support state provision. The overall socio-economic benefits and effective consumer costs can sometimes be better delivered through private provision or PPPs rather than public sector monopolies. In some areas, however, the public provision of education and healthcare services is essential for achieving deeper, non-fiscal outcomes.
How to make partnerships work
Hearth Advisors has effectively built and supported various partnerships in the education sector for decades and is using its experience in dealing with organisations and governments globally to facilitate healthcare partnerships to emerge. These partnerships are sometimes of private sector providers working with public bodies (public-private partnerships); often, they are transnational education or healthcare relationships, and sometimes, these are alliances between institutions or businesses with similar objectives. Partnerships allow the deployment of products and services, providing solutions that enable positive change. In an effective partnership, one party brings innovation, funding, experience or flexibility that the other party lacks or is constrained in providing.
Building institutions and capacity
Hearth Advisors develops innovative institutions, including schools and universities, that use creative pedagogy, interesting learning spaces, and exciting teachers to deliver high-quality learning to their learners. Our curriculum, training, and development services enhance institutions’ delivery capacity. We have gained a growing reputation for providing effective advice and solutions that enable clients to realise their ambitions. Our advice is evidence-led and often based on translational research, allowing the latest findings to guide institutions.
Regulatory environment
Navigating the modern policy environment requires an integrated approach and an expert understanding of the regulatory process, which is a crucial strength of our firm.
Sustainability
Hearth Advisors believes education is crucial to creating a better, more sustainable world. Our work, from curriculum development and training to institutional change and creation, is underpinned by an emphasis on sustainability.
Fostering innovation
We have developed a reputation for identifying and bringing to market innovation that works. We distinguish leading education technologies that address critical areas within their systems, from unique instructional delivery and online learning forms to data management and accountability tools. We advise investors and technology companies in multiple segments, such as strategic planning, research and development, formulating market-entry strategies, etc. Hearth Advisors has worked with prominent investors, and we have earned a reputation for bringing new perspectives and insights to both sides of deal flows. We understand the unique nature of transactions in the education and healthcare sectors. We can draw critical strategic insights into the growth prospects of businesses and enhance the organisations’ operational effectiveness.
