Closing the care-gap in Europe

01/02/2023

Wintersemester 2022-23 / CareMe – Fritz Hajek

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Today, 50 percent of the people aged over 65 that require long-term care do not get proper support. By 2050 this group will have grown by more than 20% and 38.1 million people in the EU will need long-term care. This means, that millions of people will not get the care they deserve and will be struggling with day-to-day tasks. This makes the process of finding the right match difficult. The Start-up CareMe wants to solve this problem by making the caregiving job attractive again, thus closing the care gap. It’s CareMe’s vision to be the leading innovator in the Austrian home care system by making the caregiving process as automated and convenient as possible.

Goal

CareMe is the first fully digitalized homecare agency. Their goal is to disrupt the European homecare market by putting the caregiver first. With their unique matching platform, they can make sure that the caregiver’s skills and the care-seeker’s requirements have a perfect fit. The goal of the project was to develop a comprehensive business plan based on a detailed market analysis. Further, the business plan should be tailored to the AWS – Pressed grant so that the project partner can apply for the respective grant based on the work conducted in the course.

Methodology

The methodology applied in this course is business planning. To develop a comprehensive business plan, we worked with various tools such as the business model canvas, the SWOT framework and different financial planning tools.

Results

Market analysis has clearly shown that the following three unique selling points place CareMe as a pioneer in the home care market: Transparency, higher wages for caregivers and higher customer satisfaction based on digitalized matchmaking. Especially the higher wages for caregivers and therefore the increase of benefits for them to work in this field is something competitors cannot name as their USPs. Furthermore, CareMe is the only company in the market that wants to fully digitalise its service.

With focus on the mentioned USPs and market analysis of the DACH-region a business plan for CareMe has been created as a profound basis for the implementation to the market. One major part of the plan is the financial aspect which is crucial for the success of the newly founded company.

Cooperation Partner

  • CareMe - Fritz Hajek

Contact Person

  • Fritz Hajek - fritz.hajek@bitworks.at

Student Team

  • Felix Stefan Ambros

  • Sebastian Steiner

  • Sara Yousefi

  • Chiara Valentina Zimmermann

Project Manager

  • Melina Mazzucato, MSc.

  • Mag. Benjamin Monsorn