Opportunity Series No.6: SmileCare by Smart Eye & Dental Group Redefines Cross-Border Healthcare Collaboration Between Shenzhen and Hong Kong

The “Top 50 Private Dental Healthcare Enterprises in China” is part of KPMG China’s “Healthcare 50” series. KPMG China has long maintained close attention to the development trends of China’s healthcare industry. Through this public welfare initiative focused on the dental sector, it aims to identify exemplary benchmark enterprises in the dental healthcare market, facilitate the healthy development of more high-quality private dental healthcare providers, jointly explore new trends for the future development of China’s dental healthcare market from a global perspective, and support the transformation and rise of China’s dental healthcare industry.

To support the “Top 50 Private Dental Healthcare Enterprises in China” initiative, KPMG China has specially curated and launched the “Dental Top 50 Opportunities” series. This series focuses on enterprises across the upstream and downstream of the dental healthcare industry chain, exploring topics such as the current market environment, investment hotspots, and industrial transformation, to provide insights into the future development trends of the dental healthcare sector.

In this article, we share insights from the "Oral Care 50 Opportunities" interview series in a Q&A format. In this interview, Luo Jianying, Partner and Head of Healthcare and Life Sciences for South China at KPMG China, speaks with Li Xiaoting, Executive President of Hong Kong C-MER Medical Holdings Limited and Director of C-MER Aikangjian Dental Group.

Luo Jianying:Last September, CSMC Aikangjian Dental held a brand upgrade launch event themed “Shenzhen-Hong Kong Cooperation · Healthy Greater Bay Area,” leveraging the business strengths of Hong Kong CSMC Medical Group and CSMC Aikangjian Dental. The company formally signed the “Bright Eyes and White Teeth” strategic cooperation agreement with Fortune Global 500 companies such as Bank of China and China Merchants Bank, YHLO Biotech; higher education institutions including Southern Medical University and Shenzhen Polytechnic University; and industry associations such as the Shenzhen Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment, the Shenzhen Chamber of Commerce, the Shenzhen Women Entrepreneurs Chamber of Commerce, and the Shenzhen Enterprise Confederation. This initiative aims to establish foundational “eye + oral” health records for residents of the Greater Bay Area and achieve full-lifecycle “eye + oral” health management. Please share how CSMC Aikangjian Dental plans to implement the “Bright Eyes and White Teeth” brand upgrade strategy in the future.

Li Xiaoting:With the integration of Shenzhen Aikangjian Dental into C-MER Healthcare Group’s business portfolio, the establishment of an ecosystem under the “Bright Eyes and White Teeth” brand upgrade initiative will enable the provision of integrated “eye + oral” health management services to numerous community consumers in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. This will further promote the coordinated development of both intra-regional and cross-regional economic cycles. For instance, the close and effective interaction among patients, communities, and hospitals creates a strong foundation for resource and customer sharing between C-MER Healthcare Group and C-MER Aikangjian Dental. Integrating regional dental brands will provide access to networks of oral-health-related customers, universities, and industry associations, which will play a pivotal role in the “Bright Eyes and White Teeth” brand upgrade initiative. For C-MER Aikangjian Dental, continuously expanding its network of partners and fostering mutual assistance is the right strategy to maximize resource value addition and empowerment.

The brand upgrade of “Bright Eyes, White Teeth” carries profound significance: “Eyes” refers to the ophthalmology services of Hong Kong C-MER Eye Care Holdings, while “Teeth” denotes the dental services of C-MER Aikangjian Dental. This reflects C-MER Aikangjian Dental’s commitment to delivering an ideal service experience characterized by “bright eyes and white teeth” for consumers.

Caring Medical Group and Caring Aikangjian Dental have joined forces to launch cross-sector initiatives that deeply integrate their respective resources through diverse formats. These include the “Million Red Vests” Oral Health Public Welfare Campaign, which establishes a dedicated green channel for medical care and provides dental benefits specifically for Shenzhen’s million volunteers; the “Bright Eyes and White Teeth” Warm Police Action, offering special discounts on ophthalmology and dental services to public security officers and their families; and a series of “Eye + Oral” health free clinics combining online recordings with offline popular science outreach. Additionally, the concept of “Caring for the Healthy Lives of the Elderly” has been promoted through public welfare activities such as square dancing competitions and senior choir contests. Through diversified thematic settings and integrated online-offline public welfare efforts, Caring Aikangjian Dental’s numerous cross-marketing campaigns have garnered widespread recognition and respect from both industry insiders and the general public.

Clearly, resource integration built on the commonality of “eyes and mouth” forms the foundation for the brand upgrade of “Bright Eyes and White Teeth.” The underlying logic stems from C-MER Aikangjian Dental’s new approach to brand activities: organizing and revitalizing resources within the dental industry, conveying brand philosophy through cultural initiatives, and focusing on enhancing the intrinsic value of its products and services in specific scenarios. This marketing strategy evolves from points to lines and then to a comprehensive plane, ultimately establishing a unique cultural IP symbol.

Compared to the cumbersome and time-consuming process of seeking care across various dental and ophthalmic brands, C-MER Eye & Dental Healthcare’s “Bright Eyes, White Teeth” brand initiative offers consumers a faster and more convenient experience through one-stop, multi-service, dual-specialty care, while simultaneously helping to establish comprehensive dental and ophthalmic health records.

Luo Jianying:In February last year, Hong Kong C-MER Healthcare Group successfully acquired Shenzhen Aikangjian Dental and officially renamed it C-MER Aikangjian Dental. As early as September 2021, Hong Kong C-MER Healthcare Group had entered into a strategic partnership with Shenzhen Aikangjian Dental, fully leveraging C-MER’s dental care service network across Causeway Bay, Tsim Sha Tsui, Diamond Hill, and Sha Tin in Hong Kong, thereby pioneering a new model of medical collaboration between Shenzhen and Hong Kong. In light of the easing of border-crossing restrictions following the pandemic, please share how C-MER Aikangjian Dental plans to leverage its existing experience in Shenzhen-Hong Kong cooperation to expand its presence in the Greater Bay Area.

Li Xiaoting:Leveraging a medical platform built upon its dual core businesses of ophthalmology and dentistry, C-MER Healthcare Group is founded on the heritage of both brands originating from serving Hong Kong clients. Relying on its dental service network across Causeway Bay, Tsim Sha Tsui, Diamond Hill, and Sha Tin in Hong Kong, the Group has vertically extended its reach to establish a service network centered in Shenzhen and radiating across the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. This network integrates 13 specialized dental hospitals and clinics covering Luohu, Futian, Nanshan, Bao’an, and Longhua districts in Shenzhen, thereby constructing a multi-tiered institutional network with deep integration.

Reviewing the 27-year development journey of CSMC HKJ Dental, we have assembled an expert team by extensively recruiting dentists graduated from prestigious dental schools such as Peking University and The University of Hong Kong, and continuously adapt to job requirements by inviting renowned experts in the field of dentistry to conduct skills retraining.

C-MER Healthcare Group’s integration of Shenzhen Aikangjian Dental extends beyond dentistry; introducing a chain-service model for dental care is merely the beginning. What truly deserves acclaim is its effort to align Hong Kong’s advanced healthcare management systems with those of the Greater Bay Area (GBA), while replicating and promoting the GBA’s branded dental chain model to other regions. Although competition in the dental healthcare market is intense, the key to success lies in transcending regional limitations and identifying breakthroughs that enable multi-location replication and chain operations. This involves implementing refined, tiered operational strategies across various institution types, including hospitals, outpatient clinics, and private practices. Following the resumption of full border crossings between Hong Kong and mainland China, C-MER Aikangjian Dental will work to overcome integration challenges between its Shenzhen and Hong Kong teams, while accelerating the deep convergence of medical technologies and treatment protocols across the two regions.

CMB Dental summarizes its future strategic layout in the Greater Bay Area with three keywords: Rooting, Attracting, and Expanding.

First, in existing markets, we will deepen our local presence by leveraging a thorough understanding of regional dental care consumption patterns and the inherent advantages of localized teams. This approach facilitates better integration into the local market environment, enabling the continuous rollout of targeted and differentiated dental healthcare services.

Secondly, in addition to leveraging the advantages of its in-house medical team, it is essential to attract like-minded experts to provide support. By building a dental business model on the foundation of an established localized team, the organization can better deliver efficiently integrated services to local consumers.

Finally, by prioritizing the Greater Bay Area as the primary market for expansion and focusing on small- to medium-sized dental brands that have already established an initial customer base, integration with C-MER Medical Holdings’ existing network of ophthalmic hospitals and clinics in the region will be pursued. This strategy leverages shared administrative and marketing resources to achieve cost savings, unified management, and diversified service offerings, thereby further generating business synergies.

Luo Jianying

Luo Jianying:For many years, CSMC Aikangjian Dental has focused on the development and exploration of cutting-edge dental diagnostic and treatment technologies, actively promoting the establishment and clinical application of fully digital dental diagnostic and treatment systems. It has successfully developed diagnostic and treatment systems such as “DMI Digital Smart Implantology,” “ADA Precise Digital Aesthetic Orthodontics,” “DSD Aesthetic Smile Design Restoration,” and “Periodontal Tissue Regeneration Surgery,” forming a comprehensive one-stop closed-loop digital continuous care system encompassing “prevention–diagnosis–treatment–maintenance.” This approach provides patients with precise, safe, convenient, and efficient dental care experiences. How will CSMC Aikangjian Dental leverage digital technologies to enhance its diagnostic and treatment services?

Li Xiaoting:Industrial digitalization has become the primary engine driving the development of the digital economy, propelling continuous upgrades across numerous industries. However, its penetration into the healthcare sector tends to be slower, primarily because upgrading each segment demands substantial effort and requires integration across diverse platforms. Digital empowerment in the healthcare industry has first enabled more efficient diagnosis and treatment by physicians, saving time for doctor-patient communication. It further supports clinical decision-making, while playing a significant role in optimizing medical service workflows, enhancing service efficiency, and improving patients’ healthcare experiences.

CMB Medical Group and CMB iCare Dental have long been exploring digital transformation. This year, such efforts have become a key component of the group’s strategic plan, aiming to meet consumers’ diversified healthcare service needs by leveraging its large customer base and high repurchase rate. Specifically, the group is focusing on four key areas:

▶ Digital empowerment enhances frontline medical operational capabilities, digitizes the diagnosis and treatment process, and improves the quality and efficiency of healthcare services.

▶ Build digital agile operational capabilities. The high complexity of document hierarchies and structures arising from diverse institutional types—including groups, hospitals, outpatient departments, and clinics—creates an urgent need for robust digital capabilities to address issues of data lag and time-consuming, labor-intensive data collection. Only by enabling interoperability at the underlying data layer and establishing unified data standards can standardized, efficient, and intensive integrated operations be achieved.

▶ Build a customer-centric digital marketing system, that is, create a comprehensive, multi-level, and high-quality medical service system tailored to the service needs of different customer groups in various scenarios, ultimately achieving synergistic operation of the dual brands in dentistry and ophthalmology.

▶ Leverage digitalization to drive automation of management processes, optimizing financial management, procurement, and daily operational management workflows.

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