Wednesday, February 13, 2008

India's Amazing Leaders: S.K. Venkataraman – CFO, Apollo Group

Mr. Venkataraman came onboard the Scholarship to give us a lecture of Apollo and the Indian Healthcare industry and surprised us by actually giving us 2 lectures – one as a CFO and one as an emerging philosopher/spiritual leader. The combination of the two has left us speechless but in a way summed up the power of India as a nation. The leaders that we met seem to be on a mission greater than themselves and view much of their success in a multi-dimensional manner. Their religious and cultural upbringing in inter-woven into everything they do. Mr. Venkataraman is 48 years old and even though he talks and thinks of money all day long, he said to the students:”Money you make as a consequence of other things. There must be other layers in your life!”

The following are my notes on the 1st lecture concerning India’s healthcare industry and Apollo’s place in it:
Healthcare in India is a $28 to $35 billion industry and accounts for only 5% of GDP (vs. the US which is 13%). The industry is completely fragmented. Many hospitals are run by doctors, not professionals. The doctors tend to sell the hospitals for profit to investors who rarely care about improving the overall system. As a result, India’s healthcare system is still in the 15th century! So the private sector is left to take the initiative to fix the whole system.

Apollo deals with 15% of the Indian market as whole, providing mostly low frequency, high risk, tertiary care. This make their services highly capital intensive; depending on land and buildings as well as new equipment (that cannot be more than 5 years old!).

50% to 60% of people who come to Apollo hospitals pay out of their own pocket. Insurance coverage is less than 1% of the market! Many sell their homes to seek treatment. Most of the public in India does NOT have access to healthcare just like most of the population does not have access to toilets and clean water (he claims that it is 70% of the population, which negates much of the official data we got about India).

For Apollo to set up an hospital, it costs $100,000 per bed (vs. $1 million in the US) and the patient gets charged $200 per day for that bed. This has become a main catalyst for Medical Tourism. It represents 1/8th of the cost in the US, 1/5th of the cost in the UK, ½ of the cost in Thailand, and 1/3rd of the cost in Singapore. 20% of Apollo hospitals’ revenue now comes from exporting medical services. Yet most of their “medical tourists” are from the Middle East and Bangladesh. They are also getting involved in tele-medicine especially in radiology, when the diagnosis is co-authored with a radiologist in theUS.

Another revenue source is pharmaceuticals. The CFO claims that over 1/3rd of the drugs in India are fake, but Apollo is known for being a reliable source of drugs so they have built their business to over 600 drugstores around India. India, he told us, has a large pharmaceutical industry that supplies generic drugs at a fraction of the cost. Apollo also gets very good discounts when buying drugs for their pharmacies, so they have no problems staying competitive in that market as well as very attractive to overseas visitors!

As far as purchasing their medical equipment, they deal with the 4 major suppliers in the world who have special pricing for India, so they have no problem getting the equipment they need for their hospitals.
One of the businesses they are promoting is medical insurance but the problem is that of access. With most of the population being illiterate or semi-literate, they do not understand that they should demand healthcare as a fundamental civil right (like in Western countries).

Apollo is working with hospitals chains, like Tenant in the US, exchanging training and knowhow. However, due to the weakness of the dollar, there has not been a foreign direct investment from them. India now allows 100% FDI in hospitals, and the opportunity is vast since the healthcare system currently resembles the one in the US in the 20’s and 30’s.

Apollo has strong relationships with hospitals in Cuba and Brazil. They also started offering consulting services to lesser developed countries, like Nigeria. They have currently 30 consultants and their services contribute 2% to the total revenues of Apollo. Their expertise is in marrying technology with commerce. When they undertake a consulting project, they usually share in the hospital’s profit and sometimes leave people to run the place for a longer term.

The speaker made a strong statement about the future of India. He said: “We have some of the best skills and minds in the world!” India is seeing a developing trend of professionals, such as doctors, returning to the country. A take-home of a doctor in India, he told us, is higher than the US and the same is happening in IT. So the financial incentives are now there for those people to come back. “There is a comfort in crowds,” he smiled. “We are 1/6th of the world population!”

Finally he told us that there is a big gap in education of hospital administration and management and Apollo is addressing it by setting up their own schools. The problem is that the majority of the population has still to perceive hospital administration as a good career, but that will come. “We are the pioneers,” he concluded, “Someone else will get the credit…”

Second Presentation: Corporate Yoga

The Supreme Lord is situated in
Everyone’s heart, O Arjuna, and is
Directing the wanderings of all living
Entities, who are seated as on a machine,
Made of the material energy

Man had invented religion. God is in all our own hearts. The longest journey that you will take in your life is from your head to your heart…

The last thing we ever want to learn is about ourselves. What are you? Take time to mediate daily. Spend time with yourself. We always want to fill our lives with activities…
Objectives to Realize:
• Take time out from daily life (sit still for 30 minutes a day and you will find the answers within you)
• Introspect
• Instill a senses of Balance
• Get in touch with yourself
• What are you doing REALLY?
• Get a little rest in the “dressing room”
• Demystify spiritually and remove the veil
• Corporate are countries/kingdoms today

Why can’t we relate to each other when there is only one world or one consciousness? Why can’t we go beyond ourselves INTO ourselves and learn that we’re all the same?

Reflect a bit on your past:
• Birth
• Schooling
• Childhood ambitions
• College – changing goals
• Job – first, second…
• Marriage, children
• Where are you now?

Our thinking levels are very low. We need proof that things exist, even love!

Fundamental Relationships:
• GOD or SELF or ABSOLUTE
• Relatives
• Work
• “From the sweat of the brow shall you earn…”
Knowledge:
• Belief – we act from our beliefs not from knowledge
• Understanding – a man is his understanding!
• Impressions – we are living in a world of illusions
• The limitation of our six senses – what you are experiencing is coming from you; faulty equipment leads to faulty conclusions
• Where do thoughts originate – do you own your thoughts?
• The mind too is an organ – it catches thoughts that are beamed to us universally

Just once a day, clean up your thoughts! You may be catching the wrong ones!
Centers of Existences:
• Physical/intuitive
• Emotional
• Intellectual
• Several personalities within us…
• Automatic existence
• Several realities simultaneously exist!
• Time and space can be destroyed at will
• The world, you and God all exist at once

We are all victim of inertia. How do we make my existence as alive as possible so it will not be only a memory or just become a ritual?

Balance:
• As important a concept as gravity
• Equilibrium is an important necessity for dynamic systems
• Consequences of imbalance?
• Mental balance – the key to life!
• The ripples of imbalance throughout society
• Seek balance in – money, work, relationships, exercise, food, boss, subordinate

Leaders should act as centers of balance!

Mr. Venkataraman summed it all up by telling us that he is building a website devoted to “Corporate Yoga” and invited the students to participate if they believed that what he said had merit. “There are 30 of you. If you really believe in this, you can make it 300,000…” he said.

1 comment:

venkat said...

The article on both subjects health and self ,comes from the heart.
Excellent piece of reading .