In his early thirties, Shivinder Mohan Singh, the managing director of Fortis Healthcare, one of the first corporate groups to get into the healthcare sector, already demonstrates the poise and balance of someone who has been in business much longer. His company is already one of the fastest growing healthcare chains in the country and is the second largest hospital chain in the country, behind Apollo Healthcare Enterprises. If everything goes according to plan, one may see the Rs 512 crore Fortis group emerging as the largest in near future. Shivinder is putting in around half a billion dollars to increase his hospital network to 40 by 2011. Presently, Fortis has 13 hospitals with a total capacity of 2,200 beds.
The company is still to make profits but it seems to have things under control. The controversial Escorts hospital acquisition in the capital has now been more or less settled and there are several new acquisitions in the pipeline. The occupancy rates across various hospitals seems to be coming along well and as it grows its network, Fortis will also enjoy benefits of scale. Not bad for a company that is about six years old and that too from a sector that has longer (around five to six years) gestation period.
?When we first got into the hospital business, there was no concept of corporate presence in the sector. People were very sceptical about the Ranbaxy group getting into it. But my father thought that healthcare was a logical extension to the group?s expertise in pharma,? says Shivinder. His brother, Malvinder Mohan Singh now heads the group?s flagship company Ranbaxy while Shivinder is also a member on the board.
But healthcare is something that was always close to his heart. He says that he has never been interested in the pharmaceutical side of business. ?It struck me as a bit boring business,? he says. He adds that his brother, on the other hand, was fascinated by it. ?He was the real pharma kid. I remember instances where he would walk into chemist shops and start asking about which drug was selling more and what were people asking for. I had no such inclinations,? he says.
But when his father thought of the healthcare idea, he was very interested. ?A bell went off in my head. I thought that here is something interesting and something that I could do,? says Shivinder. ?The pharma side had almost no interaction with the people and did not touch the customers directly. But in the healthcare business, one had the chance to meet people, see how your product or service affected them and also have the satisfaction of having made a difference to that person?s life,? he adds.
As a consequence, he has been involved with the group?s healthcare endeavours from the beginning. ?I was just a kid when I started. I was a fresh pass out from Delhi?s St Stephen?s College. I was sent to Mohali for the hospital project as an executive assistant to the project in-charge. This is what I call my baptism by fire. We were working for 18-20 hours a day but I had a good time,? he says. He was packed off to Duke university for a MBA degree soon after. ?In fact, I did not want to go. I felt I was too young and could have done with a few more years of experience. I negotiated hard with my father but in the end his arguments prevailed. Perhaps, he knew that he did not have much time and wanted to see his sons well settled before he left,? reminisces Shivinder.
But did he want to get into business in the first place or did he have other ambitions? ?We were never exposed to business while we were growing up. We had no real idea of what was our father?s attitude to business. Also, most of the time, I was away at the Doon boarding school. But there were these subtle hints and I on my part was very clear in my head as that I would be an entrepreneur some day.?
He returned to be made the CEO of the healthcare business. ?I was a little unnerved at first. I was thrown right into the deep end,? he says. One of the most difficult issues for him was to establish authority and deal with older people.
?I had some issues with an older person and wanted to haul him up. I was quite hesitant and called up my chairman for doing the same. He said that it was my job, so I was the one who had to do it. I somehow managed to do it and from then, things turned out well.?
So have things changed for him now? ?There is indeed a difference in the way we do business now and when I started. The issues are different. At that time, the model was just taking off and we did not even know whether the venture would be a success or not,? says Shivinder. He adds that his company is already much bigger now than the group ever thought it would be when they started with the idea. Now, unlike earlier times, his main challenges are more on the operational side?how to scale up the business, how to develop the brand equity for our services, how to find the right people and how to sustain growth and contribute to society.
But have things changed for him as an entrepreneur? Has he managed to shape a leadership style for himself? ?I tend to go a lot by my gut feel. However, earlier, I had a very marked idea of black and white. Now, I have begun seeing the shades of grey as well. I guess this is what experience brings in. My reactions are less knee-jerk now and I tend to analyse issues a lot more deeply than I did earlier. Verification of the gut feel by data or empirical evidence has become very routine. However, gut feel still remains a key factor for my decisions,? he says. He adds that he is often told that a lot of his business habits or attitude to decision making are similar to his father. ?My father is thought of as a remarkable business leader. So this can only be a good thing for me,? he adds with a glint of humour in his eyes.
In the process of managing his business, Shivinder has become a bit of a workaholic as well. A normal day is waking up in the morning, getting to office and going back home for sleeping. ?Weekends are dedicated to spending time with family. I do want to retire by 50 though. And I think I will manage to do the same,? he says. He is also a bit of a gadget freak, though he does not like convergence. ?I like each device to do its own specific function. I like my phone to be a phone and my music player to be just that. But I am into gadgets,? he says.
Now that the business has established a scalable model, the next thing on his agenda is to become the most trusted name for healthcare services in the country. But what does he enjoy most about being a business leader and what are his goals? ?While it does give me a kick to close a deal or build a new facility but these are more like adrenaline kicks. The reason why I want to be in business is to be able to make a difference to people?s lives,? he says. This is also Fortis? and his personal vision for the next few years–increasing commitment to society and stakeholders.