A famous author, Robin S. Sharma once said that, “Leadership is not about a title or a designation. It’s about impact, influence and inspiration. Impact involves getting results, influence is about spreading the passion you have for your work, and you have to inspire team-mates and customers.” In the dynamic and challenging business climate leadership is one of the most important traits an entrepreneur must possess. As a leader his/her abilities to innovate, execute and be a strong role model for the team will always be essential. One such leader is the dynamic and visionary entrepreneur Pankaj Narula, the Director& Head of Business Development at Son of Narula Group (SNG) India. He has studied abroad and is highly inspired by his father P K Narula and honorable Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi. As said by Pankaj “P.K was an avid and great organizational leader and people’s person. The other person is Honorable Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi, who exemplifies excellent leadership & management skills.”
Under the aegis of PK Narula, SNG India was established with a vision to ensure that every healthcare facility and institution has the best intra-facility logistics and healthcare solutions and consequently reduces healthcare delivery costs without compromising on the quality. In 1990, Narula, brothers Pankaj & Puneet, took the reins of the business and completely restructured it in 1998.
Reducing Healthcare Delivery Costs and Enhancing Healthcare Quality
The Indian healthcare space had insignificant exposure to new medical and healthcare technologies in the ‘60s. SNG group utilized this opportunity to reduce the gap and bring these technologies to India and expand its business. SNG’s mission has always been to ensure that every healthcare facility and institution has the best intra-facility logistics and healthcare solutions offered by them and consequently reduce healthcare delivery costs and enhance healthcare quality.
Pankaj’s Perspective towards Scenario of Healthcare Industry
In the recent years, the central government has shown the keen interest in improving India’s healthcare facilities and establishing many new medical facilities all over the country, giving the industry a much-needed impetus. Healthcare is now a prime focus for the government to not just provide adequate healthcare but also quality healthcare, to its citizens and it is quite open to explore and discuss new technologies in this space that bring in various benefits and efficiency.
Pankaj says, “The challenge faced by the industry today, especially with new technologies, is that different OEMs and developers offer different technologies platforms, different standards, and comply with different international quality norms and directives, for example for the same system one OEM may be following US standards, another HTM, and another CE. Interestingly, in India all different standards are acceptable, resulting in different facilities adopting different norms, hence multiple standards have prevented standardization in India. What we really need to do it takes the best from various international norms, directives, and standards in a generic manner and standardizes the norm for India.”
On the other hand, technology helps in faster healing, reduction of incidences of bio-hazards and hospital-acquired infections, enhancement of facilities and consequently reduces healthcare delivery costs. It also helps to increase the confidence of the care seeker on the care giver.
Over the past 5 years, owing to SNG group’s efforts and awareness programs, the healthcare providers have started moving toward technology-driven solutions for their facilities – be it healthcare logistics solutions like pneumatic tube systems, robotic and automated hospital drug management solutions, automated waste, and laundry tube systems etc. More and more healthcare facilities have started adopting these technologies. Although it’s still at a very nascent stage, the healthcare providers are becoming more and more cognizant of the need for such technologies and solutions.
Reaching New Heights by tackling Obstacles
In the beginning there were a few hurdles for Pankaj, especially the lack of interest of Indian healthcare institutions and facilities not willing to accept new technologies & solutions and ignoring the issue of healthcare. It was quite a herculean task to educate them and make them realize the imperative need for such solutions. The idea of cost versus benefits needed to be explained. Pankaj along with his brother Puneet, joined forces when the business was at its lowest with sales down and the organization bleeding from every nook and corner with 16 offices and over 200 sales engineers. As a result, by the year 2004, SNG regained its status of being an important player in the healthcare solutions space. The motivated team took the business to new heights with focus on Healthcare Automation. Their focus was on the development of overseas partnerships with world’s leaders in the lines of their vertical: Healthcare Automation. As stated by Pankaj, “we’ve learned from every single thing and we taught them how to survive.”
Customer Satisfaction is the Reason of Success
Customer Satisfaction has been the primary goal of SNG to achieve success in their mission. First few years of their resurged organization in the 1990s and 2000s were completely dedicated to Customer awareness (for new technologies and solutions) and developing SNG in-house Customer Support system. This impacted their business, revenues, and profits favorably.
“Success is impossible without mission and vision, mission and visions are not achievable without timelines and support of a good team. Our success is attributed to our Team SNG – who are zealous, well trained and achievers.” Pankaj adds.
Groundbreaking Solutions and Future Aspects
Currently, SNG has two verticals of solutions viz. Healthcare Logistics Automation, wherein they offer Pneumatic Tube Systems & Pneumatic Waste & Laundry Collection Systems; Healthcare Turn-Key Solutions, wherein they offer Modular & Seamless OR Solutions, TKS packages for Critical Areas such as ICUs, ERs, & Patient Rooms. The company has also recently introduced solutions for Central Medical Gas Supply Pipeline Systems, and has executed and delivered these solutions in a few renowned healthcare facilities.
SNG believes that the future of healthcare technology era in India is promising. Understanding the needs, adapting to domestic requirements and standardizing procedures are imperative.
Source :- The 10 Most Admired Leaders in Healthcare
Pankaj Narula: A Promising Entrepreneur who is Revolutionizing Healthcare
