Apollo Hospital
For the exclusive use of N. VAIDYA, 2015.
IMB 425
SUHRUTA KULKARNI, KRIPA MAKHIJA AND U DINESH KUMAR
APOLLO HOSPITALS: DIFFERENTIATION THROUGH HOSPITALITY
The ‘‘wow’’ factor in service relies on constant innovation and demands continuous and sensitive focus on all issues that may affect the patient’s stay in a hospital. Every touch point of the hospital needs to be ‘‘alive’’ and the client must be able to feel the warmth offered. The culture of service is imperative in today’s scenario, where the differentiators could just be the manner in which services are offered. All the major players could replicate infrastructure within a short span of time, but not the service culture.
Dr. Umapathy Panyala, Chief Executive Officer, Apollo Hospitals, Bangalore (March 2013)
Dr. Panyala, CEO, Apollo Hospitals, Bangalore believed that in the future, the hospitality aspect of hospitals—the service provided to patients—would differentiate Apollo Hospitals from a large number of equally competent competitors in the growing Indian healthcare industry. He had set up a quality department at the Apollo Hospital in
Bangalore, headed by Dr. Ananth Rao. Apart from being an expert on Metabolic Diseases and Biochemistry, Dr.
Rao was also a Lean Six-Sigma black belt from the Indian Statistical Institute, Chennai.
You can’t manage what you don’t measure—although this may sound clichéd; I am still a firm believer of this philosophy and want to apply this, especially in the hospitality part of hospitals.
Clinical benchmarking is a compulsory requirement and is taken care of; however, patients have so many other touch points in their stay at hospitals—the hospitality part. Some of the world-class hotels (such as the Ritz–Carlton) have performed benchmarking to standardise their hospitality offerings; at the same time, its employees are allowed to use their judgment to provide whatever delights the customer in every visit. 1 We want to internalise this in our culture as well.
– Dr. Ananth Rao,
IMB 425
SUHRUTA KULKARNI, KRIPA MAKHIJA AND U DINESH KUMAR
APOLLO HOSPITALS: DIFFERENTIATION THROUGH HOSPITALITY
The ‘‘wow’’ factor in service relies on constant innovation and demands continuous and sensitive focus on all issues that may affect the patient’s stay in a hospital. Every touch point of the hospital needs to be ‘‘alive’’ and the client must be able to feel the warmth offered. The culture of service is imperative in today’s scenario, where the differentiators could just be the manner in which services are offered. All the major players could replicate infrastructure within a short span of time, but not the service culture.
Dr. Umapathy Panyala, Chief Executive Officer, Apollo Hospitals, Bangalore (March 2013)
Dr. Panyala, CEO, Apollo Hospitals, Bangalore believed that in the future, the hospitality aspect of hospitals—the service provided to patients—would differentiate Apollo Hospitals from a large number of equally competent competitors in the growing Indian healthcare industry. He had set up a quality department at the Apollo Hospital in
Bangalore, headed by Dr. Ananth Rao. Apart from being an expert on Metabolic Diseases and Biochemistry, Dr.
Rao was also a Lean Six-Sigma black belt from the Indian Statistical Institute, Chennai.
You can’t manage what you don’t measure—although this may sound clichéd; I am still a firm believer of this philosophy and want to apply this, especially in the hospitality part of hospitals.
Clinical benchmarking is a compulsory requirement and is taken care of; however, patients have so many other touch points in their stay at hospitals—the hospitality part. Some of the world-class hotels (such as the Ritz–Carlton) have performed benchmarking to standardise their hospitality offerings; at the same time, its employees are allowed to use their judgment to provide whatever delights the customer in every visit. 1 We want to internalise this in our culture as well.
– Dr. Ananth Rao,