Vasan Eye Care – Leadership and Management!

Effective leadership is putting first things first.  Effective management is discipline, carrying it out  -  Covey.

When you see Covey principles in action, especially meticulously implemented at large-scale, we have to commend!!   It was time for cataract surgery for dad  -   while I can call myself decently educated, when it comes to medical field, I am as novice as anyone can get….rather, I get psyched by how the medical field operate  -  I still struggle to comprehend on the fact that doctors are also human beings and their individual skills make or break a life (not a program unlike a software engineer!!)

So, when we went to the Vasan Eye Care center in Vadapalani, Chennai -  I was not expecting to see Covey in action!!   Starting from the security, receptionist, ward nurse and doctors  -   all I saw was the focus   -  CARE team in action….they have analyzed the psyche of patients, the psyche of attendants and established the processes…….!!

The experience was very unique for me  -  while I have seen the multinational hospitals, system and process  -  what was unique here was the human touch to everything  -  while the scale of operations is much smaller compared to a huge hospital, the focus to ensure the implementation of their USP  -  “WE CARE”  was amazing!!

Later I learnt about Dr.A.M.Arun and read through their vision, mission and values….nothing so unique for the story of a successful entrepreneur.   What was unique was the  business model which they implemented across this chain of hospitals.  

To put it simply -  a business model of a business is the one which converts the technical inputs to revenue outputs.  While I look at the most generic  components of a business model and see how Vasan fairs, this is how it looks

Value proposition - establishing the CARE TEAM, which also doubles up as their USP.  I feel there are probably excess staff -  but may be very specifically trained to do specific jobs  -  in an average eye clinic, I have mostly see ophthalmologist handling  the sensitive testing instruments, but in Vasan I saw trained technicians doing that work  -  while it is a guess, I think Vasan gets to have more staff on their roles at probably low-cost as they are only trained on specific functions. 

Market Segment  -   Vasan seems to target the upper middle class market segment -  who are affluent enough to spend money, but want to ensure that there are no frills  -  spend enough for the necessity!!  Look at the location of the hospital chains they have picked….their ambience is something which is not of a five-star status, but of a decent well-kept hospital.

Position in Value Network  -  Vasan probably is feeding the need for a neighbourhood eye clinic and hospital   -  replacing the individual eye clinics and the super-speciality huge eye hospitals.  In the value chain, they are probably all over   – adding value as a one time eye clinic visit, to the high-end of cosmetic eye treatments!!

Revenue generation and margins  – proof is in the pudding!!  they are planning their IPO!

Good going!!!