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Vinson Kurian

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, June 4

A STRATEGY paper prepared jointly by Wipro Consulting and Apollo Healthstreet in association with the Kerala State IT Mission for making Kerala "the most preferred destination for business process outsourcing in healthcare" has stressed on the critical need for aspirant players having an international presence in the client country.

This will help the HPO to be close to the customers, understand them better, and respond to them quickly should any need arise. All the leading healthcare BPO vendors from India have marketing outfits in the client country.

Sales cycles in the industry are long, ranging from three to nine months. Sales and marketing account for one of the major expenses for Indian IT-enabled Service (ITeS) providers, ranging from 25 to 30 per cent of the total expenditures. In order to reduce these expenses, it is ideal that Indian ITeS firms have close tie-ups with international marketing consultants.

However, an international office alone would not suffice. In spite of the success of Indians in the IT and ITeS space, many customers are still wary of speaking freely with a potential vendor from India. This could be for reasons ranging from cultural differences to simply not being able to trust the vendor who is located thousands of miles away.

In such cases, it is imperative to have in the marketing team an individual who is either from the client country or who has lived in the client country for some time and is acclimatised to the business environment there.

On the need for having prior healthcare experience, the paper said healthcare is a very specialised domain where margins for errors are very less. The penalties for not being able to meet commitments are very high for both the providers and players. Service providers need to have some prior healthcare experience or the backing of a strong healthcare entity to make an entry into the market.

Security, privacy and confidentiality of health information are key concerns of the consumers, providers and the players. Especially so in countries such as the US where healthcare is a very intricately structured industry.

Excess regulations impose a lot of restrictions on healthcare providers that seek to prevent them from sending patient data to outside of their premises. Service providers with prior experience of handling confidential health information will be given first preference.

On required quality standards, the paper said accreditation by internationally recognised quality councils/ associations would play a very important role in generating acceptance in the international markets.

Clients develop a feeling of comfort when they know that the processes of vendors are audited and are in accordance with industry standards.

Two of the known quality standards specific to the industry are Customer Operations Performance Center (COPC) specific to call centres and the e-Services Capability Maturity Model (eSCMM) applicable to all services.

The costs, ranging from Rs 25 lakh to Rs 40 lakh, for obtaining these standards are prohibitive by average Indian ITeS vendor standards.

Many vendors usually start with implementing principles of Total Quality Management and Six Sigma. The best way for Indian ITeS vendors to go about quality accreditation will be to get first certified by the ISO 9000 standard and then to proceed to the ITeS specific quality certificates such as COPC and eSCMM.

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