CEO Insights India

Today, healthcare industry is transforming rapidly. With the constant evolutions in the industry, healthcare domain needs leaders with the savvy to guide the industry amidst disruption from shifting government regulations and technological innovations to business competition and patients demanding better care for less. The industry needs leaders who understand the unique requirements of the industry and the gravity of healthcare’s role in daily life. A visionary professional with skills that reflects year-on-year success in achieving business growth objectives and optimizing the entire value chain of business, Manish Mishra, Chief Executive Officer Labaid Diagnostics, Dhaka has been constantly striving to achieve the targeted profit ability while turning around the healthcare business and directing it towards growth across various geographies entailing 33 countries of Asia, Africa and Middle East.

In this one on one interaction with CEO Insights, Manish Mishra gives brief insights into his professional journey and the growth of his career across the medical domain.

Give us brief details about your educational and professional background. Also, tell us about your unique skill sets and strengths that differentiate you from your peers in the industry
I'm a science graduate with a Post Graduate in Business Administration (MBA) in the year 1997. Post my graduation, I have taken up leadership trainings from various IIMs 1997. Post my graduation, I have taken up leadership trainings from various IIMs, whether it is Kolkata or Bangalore, which have been company sponsored programs of great value. Adding to this, I have been to Singapore, US, London, and even Scotland on various aspects of leadership. My skills and expertise are an outcome of immense training and grooming sessions that I have taken up from some of the biggest institutes world-wide. From professional to technical learning, the list is long and it is not just about leadership, finance or operation, I also have international exposure both in sales, marketing and development as I was managing export across 100 countries.

One of the major highlights of my profile is that I have travelled to 33 countries till date and I have managed teams across the globe. I have managed people in Asia in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines and at the same time I have been able to manage people from Africa. So managing diversity is where my expertise is. I have worked across domains. If you see my first job, I worked with SRL Ranbaxy for 10 years - six years domestic and four years in international business and I have helped launch SRL Ranbaxy in nearly all the nearby SAARC countries

So, something which comes out as a unique skill set is international exposure to the business development, and secondly, the turnaround of business. All this has been an outcome of years of skills and training gained through my experiences.

So, over the years I have covered almost all parts of healthcare. First 10 years, I was with the laboratory services, then I was part of Bio science and Life Science Division for almost seven years, post this, I joined medical device industry where I was not only managing export across major countries, to almost 100 countries but also managing direct sales in more than 30 countries. So, I have had exposure to many things and now I am managing the entire diagnostics branch, Reference lab and Pharmacy of one of the biggest Healthcare in Bangladesh. I also manage high end imaging like 21 CT and 11 MRIs along with the lab in hospital.

While ups and downs are a part of a job, the major challenges over the past two years have been fighting with the Covid19 pandemic, establishing the COVID Labs while managing non-COVID patients within the hospital space. Especially managing non-Covid patients need integrations with the help of either digital push such as tele consultations, telemedicine or maybe you have to create separate organizations altogether when it comes to the process part. So, the challenges remain same throughout my journey.

Tell us about your professional journey so far and the different roles that you have been taking up over the years?
As an industry veteran, my domain exposure entails working in Healthcare, Medical Devices (IVD) & Consumables, Pathology, Retail Chain of Pharmacy, Management of Labs in Hospital Set-Ups, Life Sciences and Chemical segments. Presently working as CEO at Labaid Hospitalsand Diagnostics, Dhaka; directing a team of more than 2000 resources, my past experiences include working across Healthcare (Life Science, Medical Devices, Diagnostics) & Pharmacy Chain Businesses with comprehensive knowledge of various markets like India, SAARC Countries, UAE, KSA, Qatar, Kenya, Nigeria, Algeria, Tunisia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam and China.

Having worked in various domains, I hold strong experience in breaking new avenues, developing businesses from scratch & driving revenue growth and proactively conducting opportunity analysis by tracking market trends & competitor moves to achieve market share metrics. Having worked with SRL Ranbaxy, Piramal Diagnostics, Thermofisher, Merck Lifesciences, Suburban Diagnostics and now Labaid Diagnostics Dhaka I have successfully delivered outstanding business growth outcomes in highly competitive markets of India and abroad. By repeatedly exceeding targets, fueling marketplace presence and deepening & retaining account base built & established Joint Ventures/Strategic Alliance/Tie-ups with Financial, Technology and Business Partners, I have formulated high quality business strategies & plans for developing businesses augmenting revenue and restructuring business processes in line with the defined policy for assigned regions. From Heading complete sales operations to leading successful delivery of projects and providing high quality of deliverables, meeting/exceeding client expectations, maintaining a high degree of client satisfaction, my experience and expertise has been derived from the various professional roles that I have managed in my career so far.

I have been to 33 countries and have managed people from Asia, Africa, and then people in Middle East and they are all different. So, I have been working in a diverse culture and managing diversity in terms of managing team international exposure as been one of my pros because it's always very, very difficult to launch an Indian productoutside Indian territory, because you have to compete with companies which are funding from US and Europe. However my exposure has been from entire health care of it starting from pathology services to bio science and life science and then I moved to medical devices and then coming back to diagnostic and hospital lab management, which I'm doing right now along with hospital lab management and pharmacy. Healthcare industry is very vast and over the year, I have covered the most.

How are you currently positioned in this market and what are your strategies to leverage this vast opportunity?
Today, we are the number one diagnostic company and we are constantly striving to expand our operations across Bangladesh. We are also looking for opportunities in the nearby countries to bring samples from. We are constantly on the lookout for reference labs because we want to invest heavily on technology and this would be first and one of its kind’s reference labs in Bangladesh. Adding to the above, we are also focusing on quality. We have started with accreditations for College of American Pathologists, and soon, we will be the first company in Bangladesh to get CAP Accreditation which is given by College of American Pathologists.

When the officials come survey, they look into the processes, technology, they send samples and we have to validate and send the control result back and that is when they pass the certification.

So, this is the only reference lab for Bangladesh, the only quality lab which will have CAP reputation. As for that also we are excited and we also have a local accreditation from Bangladesh code, which we call BAB which is from Bangladesh Accreditation Board. We expand our services within Bangladesh, we

expand in the sub region countries and to cater to that that we want to invest heavily on technologies and not just on instruments. Adopting digital methods to simplify operations is our key focus at present.

What are the new strategies deployed in your services and what are your plans to innovate your offerings further? How are you adapting technologies to revolutionize your services to be at par with current industry standards?
Like I told, Digital Transformation has always been our centre of focus. We are working on adopting technologies like chatbots used to provide the services to the patients where they can chat and can get the reports. Also, we are talking about digital medical reports so that nobody has to go for hardcopy in this COVID era, then there would be no need to come and take hardcopy immediately,instead you can download your report from wherever you are. So, digital medical record is something we're going to invest heavily. Another thing is, we are heavily investing money on tele radiology because across the country, it is very difficult to get good radiologists. So, we are also considering offering teleradiology or tele consultations and we are following very closely and it's working very fine. Nowadays, we are also researching various apps which can take care of mental wellness part, especially post-COVID, more than any disease mental illness is something which is showing up amongst people and this has been ignored, but now Government of India is shifting focus towards this and we are also creating apps which will help them. The third thing that we are focusing on is that most of the people today want to take appointments online. So, we are investing huge money on our website to make it more user-friendly and it can be expanded as an e-commerce where patients can not just take appointments but they can also make the payments in advance.

So, a lot of technologies have come up for the healthcare domain and we're investing in major one to not just facilitate things for people but also to save them from any contaminations in this COVID era. And people are also welcoming this digital adoption. They want to use such services because they are now habitual of having a tech-driven life. And therefore, we are investing money both in technology and making technology user friendly for the for the people.

What are the steps that you take to stay industry-ready? What is the growth scope that you foresee in the Indian market?
Today, if you see the Indian market, the diagnostics industry is going by high double digit one of the reasons is people want to go for preventive health checkup. So, the key driver will be preventive health checkup and genetic based testing since COVID has really brought this genetics work or RNA PCR work across the country otherwise before COVID nobody knew what is RT-PCR. So, the future growth is pretty high. Worldwide growth is in single digits which is around five to 6 percent in pathology or diagnostic whereas in India it is going togrow by 16-20 percent.

Our special focus in the years to come will be on preventive health checkups where people will come to the labs not only when they fall ill but before that so that preventive health checkups can help. Undoubtedly, growth prospects for diagnostic is huge in India, also in the nearby Asian countries. Asia is going to contribute huge amount of growth on overall IBD industry globally. As I said the main focus in the future will be on preventive health checkup. Adding to this, genetic based testing will pick pace. Nobody knew or researched before COVID about so many of the infectious diseases which in the future we are going to diagnose and will be diagnosed with genetic based testing. Whether it's also about molecular cytogenetics then it is another subject which is coming for most of the future abroad from diagnostic Indian nation countries which also looks very bright to take double digit growth, despite the fact that the lockdown was there. It's going very fast. Now most of the people have understood that better to go for vital organ check up on regular basis than anything else. Preventive health checkups and genetic testing’s are the one for future or you can say the two drivers for the Indian nation market, especially in diagnostics, and at least doubled.

Manish Mishra, Chief Executive Officer, Labaid Diagnostics
Skilled in enterprise leadership, manish has successful recognitions in stake, retail, hospitals and corporate sectors. Manish's expertize are in the fields of healthcare, medical devices, consumables, pathology, pharmacy retail chain, hospital management, life sciences and chemical