siliconindia | | September 20188HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY: IN PURSUIT OF PROFITABILITY & INVESTOR EXITSBy Nitin S. Nag, Regional Director, Cloudnine HospitalHeadquartered in Bangalore, Cloudnine is India's leading chain of maternity hospitals which provides world-class services in a broad spectrum of medical specialties that include maternity, gynecology, neonatal intensive care, stem cell preservation, pediatrics and many more. ver nearly a decade, we have seen substantial amount of money pumped into healthcare industry to galvanize it. The invest-ment has propelled players to focus on growth and differentia-tion. This pursuit, juxtaposed against a hyperactive healthcare backdrop, has led to significant innovations on all levels among private service providers ­ chief among them are, portfolio services, technology, and operations. Additionally, business model innovation has given rise to novel, asset-light healthcare para-digms. Adoption of technology has further enhanced portfolios of health-care companies. Healthcare meta-morphosis in India has led to service providers adding layers of thought and hospitality to their repertoires. Patients are increasingly being re-garded as guests, and there is spot-light on customer experience. Many of these changes are inspired by best practices of airlines and hospitality industries.Today, industry is at a point of inflexion where investments are cali-brated; a far cry from the unremitting capital influx few years ago. Inves-tors are guided by golden trinity of management performance, venture profitability and long-term sustain-ability in any investment decision. The changing climate has invariably placed stress on healthcare institu-tions to prove their financial viabil-ity over the longer term, to ensure that current investors make exits and open the industry to future inves-tors. This focus on financial viability has prompted every single player to pivot on operations and profitabili-ty. In pursuit of profits, costs are no longer pigeonhole into sacrosanct line items; rather, every cost is mi-cro-reviewed to find optimal levels of performance. Here are some cost elements that could qualify as low hanging fruits.Strategic CostsEvery organisation has a strategy that has not worked-out, but is still in ex-istence due to an inherent unwilling-ness to let go. It is natural for organi-sations to experiment; required even. However, experiments that have gone awry need to be precluded sooner rather than later. Otherwise, they re-main empty, fund-guzzling `strategic' costs. I recall when a CEO joined this large multi-specialty hospital chain, his first decision was to pull the plug in my opinionO
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