Thursday, January 24, 2008

All appears rosy at Fortis, yet their profi ts aren’t singing a happy song... So is it sighing?!

Today, on the verge of celebrating its 11th anniversary, the chain can boast of 11 well-networked modern hospitals! And as Shivender optimistically disclosed, “The total will increase soon. We are targeting to have a chain of 40 hospitals in 4 years from now!” And to prove the truth, he pointed out that even as we shared the conversation, Fortis hospital constructions SHIVENDER MOHAN SINGH, CMD, FORTIS HEALTHCAREat Gurgaon & Shalimar Bagh were underway, with the latter opening shortly. The group also of late marked its foray into the healthcare retail venture with the opening of its ‘Healthcare World’ outlets. He also revealed his group’s plan to build 10 medical massive complexes – which includes medical colleges as well – within the country in the next two years. Through its ‘Healthcare World’ chains it is attempting to get closer to its customers (piggy-backing on the retail boom) and the medical colleges are clearly an attempt to nurture talent, totally in-house – a brilliant strategy of achieving both forward and backward integration! So does that mean that Fortis is all about happy news? Didn’t Shivender face hiccups during the past decade?!

Ah, there’s the rub, for a look at Fortis’ financials only bring to surface the question marks splattered all over the group’s credibility sheet. Losses have indeed been a matter of concern for the company. Take a look at the group’s net losses for the financial year 2006-07 – losses have been magnified by a shocking 84% to touch Rs.97.39 million. Quite paradoxical, isn’t it, in an industry that is growing at a healthy rate of 12-14% per annum. So has Fortis missed out on the art of weaving the sectoral growth into its own success? Questions abound for a group which claims to have understood the length and breadth of the healthcare industry in India! While responding to the same, Shivender did not even let out a sigh, as he shot back, “We are in an industry where the gestation period is large & hence it is taking us a while but you would be able to see the black soon...” Quite logical, we must say, but then this brought forth another doubt, “How do we precisely define ‘while’ here?!?”



For Complete IIPM Article, Click here

Source: IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Management Guru Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri's Initiative

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