We speak with 3 leading faculties at the ISB to know more about the programme benefits that healthcare professionals can derive
By: Neelam Jhangiani & Jayata Sharma
The Indian School of Business (ISB) evolved from the need for a world-class business school in Asia. The founders, some of the best minds from the corporate and academic worlds, anticipated the leadership needs of the emerging Asian economies. They recognised that the rapidly changing business landscape would require young leaders who not only have an understanding of the developing economies, but who also present a global perspective. The ISB is committed to creating such leaders through its innovative programmes, outstanding faculty and thought leadership.
The Advanced Management Programme for Healthcare (AMPH) is a high-quality healthcare management programme aiming to groom leaders for the healthcare industry. AMPH boasts of best in-class peers, an opportunity to interact with senior alumni across programmes and industry leaders during and after graduation. Applicants are selected based on their leadership potential, their commitment to the healthcare industry and quality of prior work experience.
An eclectic and accomplished team of faculty teach at the ISB. The faculty are chosen on the basis of their research excellence and teaching acumen. They have a deep understanding of the health sector and are in tune with the latest trends and issues in the Indian healthcare industry. With eminent faculty from India and across the globe, AMPH is one such programme that offers the best in classroom training and beyond. The course presents a wholesome education in the field of healthcare management and covers a wide range of topics including Economics and Public Policy, Organisational Behaviour, Operations Management, Healthcare Technology, Law Management Studies, Life Sciences & Medicine, Healthcare, Innovation, Leadership, Marketing and Finance.
We spoke with some faculty members at ISB’s AMPH to give us an overview of the take-aways that the programme offers to the healthcare professionals. A glimpse of those interactions, here below…
Prof. D.V.R. Seshadri has taught in various IIMs until he joined ISB. His areas of interest include: B2B Marketing, Innovation and Entrepreneurship & Intrapreneurship. He has developed over 100 case studies and authored several application-oriented journal articles in his areas of interest apart from co-authoring books like ‘Innovation Management,’ with Shlomo Maital, Sage India in 2007; ‘Global Risk / Global Opportunity,’ with Shlomo Maital.
How is the programme at ISB different in teaching marketing strategies to its fellows?
The AMPH at ISB has participants exclusively from the healthcare sector. Hence, the course on ‘Strategic Thinking in Healthcare Organisations’. The entire course is tailored to the examples from the healthcare sector. The same is true for the second course that I teach to this cohort: Entrepreneurial Mindset and Business Model Innovation. Given that the participants are senior healthcare practitioners, the class is very engaged, especially since I largely use healthcare industry examples in my teaching.
As per you, how has the marketing outlook changed in the Indian healthcare industry in the past decade?
There is a lot of competition among players in the healthcare industry, especially in Tier-1 cities and the metros. Another aspect is acquisition of large hospitals by foreign PE players. Both these have resulted in considerable pricing and cost pressures on healthcare firms. The challenge for them seems to be how to differentiate themselves in a very competitive landscape. There is also considerable anxiety among players on the direction that the industry is heading towards, especially given the higher and higher levels of technological intensity that is the current reality.
What kind of practical assignments help professionals of the programme enhance their skills?
For the senior cohort that AMPH gets, the best way to learn is through ‘learning by doing.’ Hence, projects where the learning from the course are applied is a good way to enhance skills. If these projects are related to the day-to-day challenges being faced by the respective firms, the learning is a lot more permanent.
Many of them do not have appreciation of importance of strategic thinking, strategy formulation and strategy implementation. Their understanding of entrepreneurship / intrapreneurship as well as innovation is also relatively low. These are the areas that I focus on for the AMPH group.
We now bring you Prof. Nandu Nandkishore, who is a Marketing & Strategy professional, Global C suite Executive with over 34 years of global experience in leadership roles across a diverse set of environments in both emerging and developed markets. His key areas involve turnaround situations and crisis management, transformation of old economy businesses with “tech based” inputs & innovation, leadership and coaching in the new “tech led” and “sharing economy”, emerging markets, globalisation and cross cultural operations, sales & distribution, consumer engagement through experiential marketing, neuro-marketing and digital, corporate social responsibility and creating shared value through social engagement.
How is hospital/healthcare marketing different than other industries?
Like all other industry segments, this sector also faces transformation due to digital technologies. There is the added challenge of ensuring accessible basic healthcare to all while providing value added complex services for more affluent segments and cases which require it. So, the challenges are very specific to the industry as well as very similar to other industries in their overall themes. This is also a sector with a lot of opportunity for building a global service led model with excellence in healthcare
How do you bring practicality into your teachings at ISB?
All my classroom sessions are designed to blend three elements. Academic theory. My own global experience. And the vast collective experience of the participants. These all have to be orchestrated to maximise the opportunities for learning. My role is not to teach, but to facilitate and orchestrate learning.
What are the top 3 challenges currently faced in the industry by marketing professionals?
- How to balance purpose and profits
- How to develop a framework for bringing ethics to a business decision
- How to lead and create value sustainably in the face of great disruption
Lastly, we have with us Prof. Ramabhadran S Thirumalai, Associate Professor of Finance (Practice), who is currently working on the impact of various regulatory changes on security market pricing, efficiency and liquidity. His research interests also include the trading behaviour of various types of market participants. He teaches courses on Derivatives, Security Markets and Fixed Income Securities in PGP as well as introductory finance courses in several programmes at the ISB.
What kind of practical assignments are given to the professionals under finance?
Finance is all about identifying profitable investments to make, how to raise capital to finance these investments and how manage cash flows. We look at a detailed example of how professionals go about deciding on an investment within a healthcare organisation. For example, we examine the potential investment in a 100-bed hospital at a second location within a city where the healthcare organisation already has one facility. We discuss how to make projections on revenues, costs, capital expenditures, etc. and how to use these projections to decide whether it is a financially viable investment to make.
AMPH’s Industry CONNECT is curated to expose the participants to innovation and next practices in the health sector. A guest speaker series featuring senior industry leaders runs through the programme. Select speakers in the past include Dr Dinesh Arora,Deputy CEO, Ayushman Bharat,Dr Krishna Ella, Chairman and Managing Director, Bharat Biotech to name a few.
Usually, which top 3 challenges do professionals share with you under your subject?
The professionals are intimated by finance in general. They also have a misconception of what finance is. Most people are thinking of accounting when they say finance. While accounting and finance are related, there are quite different. Accounting is about financial reporting of past performance and the analyses of the same, which helps plan better for the future. Finance is determining what investments to make and how to raise financing for the same.
Some of the challenges that they face are trying to understand finance jargon, broadly a fear of numbers and formulas and also how finance affects their role in their current healthcare organisation. They have heard others use finance jargon in meetings (like net present value, internal rate of return, etc.) and were not able to understand many of the terms. So I focus on helping the professionals understand the many terms through various numerical examples and mini-cases.
Though there are some mathematical formulas, the emphasis is to ensure that they understand the formulas in an intuitive way, non-technical way. In other words, I try my best to explain the formulas in plain English. This is what will help them in their professional lives because in many cases, they will not be doing the financial analysis. Financial analysts and experts will do the analyses and make presentations. The professionals should be able to sit through a presentation, understand what the financial experts are talking about and ask the right questions.
I also focus on why finance is important for any professional in a healthcare organisation regardless of their exact role. Even if they are a clinician, they need to understand finance because their actions and decisions will affect the profitability of any investment a healthcare organisation makes.
| AMPH Learning Objectives The learning objectives for the programme has been developed on AACSB International (AACSB) model. The learning objectives embedded into the programme curriculum are as follows: – Develop business acumen and adopt an integrative approach towards decision making – Acquire understanding of the healthcare ecosystem – Recognise emerging trends in healthcare industry and innovate – Develop leadership and collaborative competencies with an ability to make responsible decisions and communicate effectively to a variety of individuals and groups – The programme undergoes ISB’s rigorous Assurance of Learning process that allows the School to understand whether AMPH participants learn the stated objectives – AMPH’s emphasis is on action and application rather than lecturing and theory. The pedagogy will involve the integration of faculty lectures with case study discussions, simulations and group activities. |
In the current healthcare market, which new learnings are vital to grasp the hold of finance?
There is a huge potential for growth in the healthcare sector in India today. We lag behind global standards in the availability of healthcare services for our citizens. To catch up to global standards, we need a huge investment from various avenues. Finance helps investors judge the financial viability of an investment, which is an important input to any investment decision. A lot of these investments are likely to come from entrepreneurs and so it is important to understand how start-ups raise financing. This is something we cover in the course. Start-up financing is tied to the life cycle of a start-up. At different stages of its life, capital will come from different sources.
Given the funding crunch companies are facing today, it is also critical to understand how a healthcare organisation manages its short-term working capital. Without capital to cover its day-to-day operations, it is impossible for any business organisation to survive. We talk about working capital management in the course, which focuses on managing an organisation’s short-term cash inflows and outflows.
For further information on the programme, contact:
Avibasu Bandyopadhyay
Centre for Executive Education Indian School of Business
P: 040-2318 7504 M: 95380 10020
Avibasu_B@isb.edu
Website: https://www.isb.edu/Advanced-Management-Programme-for-Healthcare
