Pharma and E-commerce are the two buzzwords in the current market scenario. Conventionally, the supply of medicines is largely a local/hyper local play, with little reliance on technology. Additionally, lack of Pan-India Integrated play in this segment has been a big roadblock to the efficiencies in the Pharma supply chain. MEDIMNY fills-in these lacunae.
MEDIMNY is one of the early entrants in the pharma B2B market, working on the principle of Availability, Connectivity, Sustainability, and Profitability. Using technology as an enabler, it seamlessly connects distributors and chemists across the nation on a single e-platform.
Pharmacies can check availability of medicines, compare discounts offered by various stockists across the country and purchase the best deals available for thousands of medicines. This ensures the availability of medicines in every nook and corner of the country at competitive rates, enabling Medical Shops to compete with B2C e-pharmacies by providing better discounts to consumers while being profitable at the same time.
Perseverance towards Healthcare
Founded in October 2019, MEDIMNY (Corporate name: Felicitas Digitech Pvt Ltd) is a mobile/web-based B2B E-marketplace for chemists, pharmacies, and medicine distributors/stockists across the country. The business model is akin to that of amazon, albeit for the niche pharmaceutical B2B segment, serving pharmacies across length and breadth of the country and not just being another hyperlocal/regional player.
MEDIMNY prides itself over 17,000+ users and 15,000+ product listings across branded, generic, insulin, vaccine, OTC, and surgical categories within a short span of operations. Its customised tech platform allows flexibility and scalability, which is reflected in its 8-12% average month-on-month consistent growth in GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) since operations. The company is well-positioned to achieve a GMV of INR 500 crores by 2024.
The Brain Behind Disruption
Over 15 years of experience in the banking and financial services industry, Founder – Nisha Keshari started her entrepreneurship journey in 2019 and founded MEDIMNY. Having exposure to the Asian markets for a long time, she realized the potential of digital e-commerce and the opportunities emerging from India’s everchanging business landscape.
Tech-Savvy Services
B2B pharma market is highly fragmented (with approx. 80,000 stockists and 8,75000 pharmacies) across India. Lack of information in terms of stock availability and pricing on a single canvas impedes transparency in the entire supply chain system, leaving pharmacies underserved.
On one side, Stockists generally cater to the only hyper-local market and that too during their working hours only. Their stock remains idle during non-business hours/days, increasing their cost of operations. On the other hand, pharmacies face challenges from smartphone savvy end-customers who demand discounts parallel to that being offered by E-pharmacies (like 1mg, netmeds, pharmeasy, etc.).
MEDIMNY’s digital platform enables stockists to showcase their inventory and offer maximum possible discounts on these surplus inventories to ensure 24*7 liquidation. Pharmacies, on the other hand, find a good bargain in comparison to the local supply chain on regular products. Additionally, they are also able to find various medicines that are not available in their local supply chain. All these lead to higher business for both stockists and retailers and, in turn, affordable medicine for end-customers.
Inspiring to Aspire
Not only MEDIMNY has crossed several milestones in a short span of operations, but it has also successfully survived two lockdowns. This has instilled the belief that its system and processes are robust enough to withstand market adversities. Serving the customers in over 600 cities across the length and breadth of the country, MEDIMNY has been accepted as a way of doing business among Pharmacies and Stockists, which was largely unheard of earlier.
Considering digital e-commerce is a new concept in the B2B pharma segment, it was (and still is) extremely challenging to convince a pharmacist as to how MEDIMNY is able to provide medicine to them at such competitive rates, whereas their local stockists do not offer any discount. They, at times, assume that either medicine is spurious or there is some other catch. Of course, once they complete their first purchase, they know the benefits and the way MEDIMNY operates.
Similarly, since the pharmacists are so used to placing orders orally or verbally to stockists, at times, the company would get calls from the pharmacies to take a note of all the products they require. MEDIMNY team had to assist them in creating an account on the Website/App, select the products and place the order.
“Given the fact that MEDIMNY caters to the ‘Bharat,’ which is not so well-versed with making online purchases, we had to create an email id first for many users before we could teach them how to use the website/app for placing orders. In the entire journey, these customer experiences have been a big learning for the team in understanding the customer base and strategizing accordingly”, says Nisha.
Addressing the Challenges
Being in B2B pharmaceutical space was not an easy task during the pandemic. The customer’s expectation was stratospherically high in terms of supply of goods, which were out of stock in major parts of the country for Covid related products. While the company was able to persuade its sellers to bring in those SKUs on the platform, very often, the quantity was a challenge.
Adding to that, with state-controlled lockdowns, it was even more challenging to serve the customers as even logistics partners were forced to shut their operations in tier II/tier III cities. Nonetheless, going digital has its benefit. All the employees were able to operate fully in work from house mode without affecting the customer service experience.
Inspiring Words
“My recommendation to future entrepreneurs is to believe in themselves and their dreams. If it is not done earlier, it does not mean that it cannot be done now. There is no right or wrong way. Do not be afraid to take risks but do so rationally. Evaluate what you want to achieve and what you need to meet your goal. Plan for contingencies as a business is a dynamic environment with lots of variables, and each variable has the potential to change the outcome. The old 1,000 days thumb rule still holds good,” says Nisha.
Towards a Glorious Path
According to the CARE Rating Report (dated 26 August 2021), the Indian domestic pharma market grew at a CAGR of 4.5% over FY17-FY21 to USD 18b and has potential to reach USD 27b by FY23. With the government’s push to digitisation, the pharma industry is witnessing big changes in the way medicines are supplied in the market. This creates a huge opportunity to streamline the supply chain in pharma market.
“We believe that in long run, all the existing pharma distribution footprints would converge to an integrated supply chain operating model to improve efficiencies in the pharma market. MEDIMNY targets to be one such operating model. Being bootstrapped until now with a small funding round from family and friends, we look to raise funds in 2022 to expand our footprints to improve delivery TAT while offer better pricing deriving out of economies of scale and efficiencies,” says Nisha.
