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Hence, the company should treat such kind of operational redesign with utmost seriousness providing for whatever is required in the process. Apollo invested heavily in education for its team members, arranged for their visits to some of the western set-ups where tele-medicine was already operational and also provided them with program methodology.

Not only this, they set-up a separate department for this initiative even when it was still in its infancy stage. The efforts bore fruit with Apollo Tele-medicine facility turning out to be the most advanced in the Asian region with a detailed roll-out plan for the next two years of its modest beginning. Today, the same Apollo team is also involved in providing expert consultancy for other healthcare companies to set-up similar tele-medicine facilities in their areas.

Managerial Engagement

"The finest idea will not get implemented unless there is an organizational framework for shepherding it from concept to reality."³

Any organization who is dedicated to implementing operational innovation in the true sense will have to focus on this aspect. What otherwise happens is well known - bureaucratic delays, dilly-dallying of responsibilities from one department to other and so on.

In this regard, efforts of Manipal Group⁵ are worth noting. The senior-most leadership was actively engaged in its efforts of initiating the idea of a retail store clinic. It involved major changes in the way it handled its operations. Fortnightly and monthly reviews, enquiries on its progress, ensuring the secrecy of the entire process to keep competitors at bay, and constant support in marketing research efforts were properly fixed. The initiative group was responsible for designing the entire plan of the roll-out. This was a particularly important and difficult role which required individual focus. Today, the results of their efforts are visible as first months sales figures in Ahmedabad and Bangalore are pouring in.

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3. Michael Hammer, "Making Operational Innovation Work" in Harvard Business Review Supply Chain Strategy Newsletter, 2005, Pp 1-4
5. www.expresshealthcaremgmt.com/200707/market01.shtml

* 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.