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In this regards, Michael Hammer's objective insights on how to make these operational innovations work prove to be a great tool.³ Though operational innovation is successfully implemented by hardly 10% of the companies, some of the leaders in the Indian Health Sector have used it very efficiently to the best of their advantage.

One of the reasons cited is that time, cost and customer satisfaction - the dimensions of performance shaped by operations - get major boosts from operational innovation. Given this background, we will now try to see how different steps of implementation have been taken care of by various healthcare organizations including Aravind, thus, giving them a unique place in the industry.

Process Focus

The first and the foremost factor is to have a clear-cut focus on the process where the innovation has to be executed. This requires listing down of various operations that an enterprise consists of along with a detailed description of each of them in terms of value creating end-to-end processes. For example, when Aravind Eye Care started its operations in 1976, it had taken the route of depending on donations and contributions for its various activities.

Though this model seemed to work initially, but over a period of time, its executives realized that a lot of time and resources are spend in this fund-raising process. As a result, Dr. G. Venkataswamy (better known as Dr. V) started thinking of some kind of operational innovation to support its institute. Aravind's model included organizing eye camps, giving consultations to outdoor patients, surgical treatment of patients and indoor treatment of diseased patients.

These few processes encompassed virtually all work performed by Aravind's employees. Out of all these processes, the surgical part was the most costly (both to the organization as well as the customers, i.e., patients). Hence, the organization thought of targeting "Operative Procedures" for improvement. In this way, Aravind appropriately defined the major problem to be solved.

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3. Michael Hammer, "Making Operational Innovation Work", in Harvard Business Review Supply Chain Strategy Newsletter, 2005, Pp 1-4

* Contributed by: -
Dr. Shreyas Goswami is a II Year Business Management student at XLRI, Jamshedpur. He is an MBBS doctor from B. J. Medical College, Ahmedabad, and had extensive work experience in the Healthcare Sector prior to joining XLRI.
This Paper was adjudged one of the Best 8 Papers in "Ashwamedh Paper Writing Contest" organized by XIMB.