Building & Managing Products For Emerging Markets-Healthcare Specific

INDIA-BANGALORE
One good thing leads to another.Thanks to Eventbrite.

 On Saturday attended a talk on "Building & Managing Products For Emerging Markets", by Ravi Kaushik.  Ravi Kaushik is the Global Product Manager-Director at Wipro GE Healthcare. He presently is focusing on Maternal and Infant Division. Under this they have come out with a Lullaby Warmer. The whole iterative process in bringing out this product and tailoring to India was discussed in detail. The challenges from price sensitivity to recommendations by end user were all part of the discussion. The effort of around 4 years with  inputs from various sources collected meticulously has resulted in world class product at Indian price! This product is now exported to developed countries also. Ravi highlighted the learning with fair bit of anecdotes, analogues and personal nuggets. Few examples-how the bottom of the pyramid varies from country to country, ice-berg pyramid.

 The audience was entrepreneurs, Nokiaites, few techies and other product leadership institute students (I am limited in my knowledge about the participants).
 The way the cell phones have penetrated the market was also part of discussion. Also it was highlighted that certain quality issues are a must in few companies which the competitors may not be adhering to. The Nokia person mentioned that each Nokia handset has to go through a Radiation emission test and this adds to cost of each set by 8$. Now we are not sure whether the local cell phone handset manufacturers test their phones or not! If it is not mandatory or not required by law, will companies be doing it voluntarily?

The event was organized by Institute of Product Leadership and Adaptive Marketing.

It is sad to note that there is no licenses or certificates  required to enter the healthcare devices market. Anybody can produce warmers, ECG machines etc and sell them. The story goes that an influential Diary Owner entered the baby warmer market, sold around 800 odd units and now is back in diary business!

Few learnings;
1. The corporate world/MNC's do take lot of pain to understand sector like healthcare through primary and secondary research but there are still lot of gaps.

2. Healthcare has complex behavioral patterns influenced by economic and other considerations. The end consumer may be  a doctor, hospital, government or the patient ! Each one presents an unique challenge in terms of market, penetration and scalability.

3. Out of pocket expenditure is the prevalent mode of healthcare expenditure in the larger part of the country. They are ready to go in debt and pay if they are convinced of the value. How the value is communicated or demonstrated is the key! The behavior of doctors and how they look at products is something which is not universally known, studied or accepted. The laws of economics also work on them!

4. Lack of FDA kind of approval in healthcare devices leaves the field wide open for all kind of jugaad!

5. Indian market pushes everyone to innovate and offer the best price. The sad or unfortunate part is the "push" is not always from the end consumer or beneficial to the end consumer.

6. Specific to warmers or products related to infants and maternal care, the lower birth rate areas will have greater market for these products. This may seem paradoxical. One may think that the areas with high infant mortality rate should be the first to have products aimed at reducing infant mortality rate! That is true provide it is funded through government. Low birth rate goes hand in hand with literacy and greater economic freedom. This makes investing in the 'precious' child a must.

7. Healthcare requires manufacturing, services, consultancy and educational support! What i mean is that manufacturing, services, consultancy and education specific to healthcare are very much in need.