sh Naagar, Co-Founder & CEO, Easy Medico
EasyMedico today has aced the consumer behaviour and the rapidly revamping modifications of it as well. The provision of making pharmaceuticals available at ease through the wholesale and franchise platform with retailers raising orders online through the virtual POS (Point of Sale) system directly like the consumer using the e-commerce interface has proved as a boon for the consumer in the healthcare scenario. They understand the needs of a consumer, franchise partner and also the pain of a traditional retailer who has been pushed to the wall due to heavy discounts offered by online players. EasyMedico is able to help everyone with a one-stop-solution for high-quality medical care and supplies at an affordable cost.
In the coexisting scenario with the brick and mortar players are companies rooting for the best healthcare services and ease to be provided to the consumer in need, online and offline both. An omni channel retail & wholesale platform of this nature for one of the best healthcare services in India is EasyMedico.
Today, EasyMedico, run by Suresh Naagar, Co-Founder & CEO, is changing the lives of medical pharmacies in a big way by disrupting the way supply chain was being looked at. Under his wise supervision, the company has created an ecosystem where they consider retailers as key partner.Right from taking care of the pain these retailer go through while dealing with 10-15 different stockiest for daily purchase to also ensuring that they can now buy more for the same amount at a single window.
Suresh added, "We ensure that with the use of EasyMedico retailer POS they don't have to make numerous calls to discuss margin and then place an order over phone resulting in human error and loss of opportunity. And not just that, now there is no more a need to store multiple invoices of different stockists for years and years to do an expiry settlement. *EasyMedico is a complete one-stop solution for everything*. We make life easy for our retailers."
ABOUT THE VISIONARY
Suresh Naagar, Co-Founder & CEO, EasyMedico defines a strategy for the business and closely oversees its execution. Suresh is an MBA from the University of Chicago-Booth School of Business. He is a seasoned leader and management executive with over 20years of experience. He has successfully worked with fortune 500 companies playing different roles, and his prior entrepreneurial experience allows him to wear different hats under different circumstances with equal ease.
THE SOLUTIONS ON OFFER
EasyMedico is an aggregator, retail supplier and Omnichannel pharmacy chain; they are tech-driven aggregator & single point supplier to Franchise and non-franchise medical stores (knows as EasyEnabled stores). They have a matured platform & their backend ecosystem empowers traditional medical stores and new entrepreneurs to run their stores most efficiently. They have 20 EasyMedico franchise stores across Madhya Pradesh, Ecommerce Portal (online), Whatsapp & Tele-calling and are the last mile fulfilment partner for pure on-line players, alongwith catering to 100+ non-franchise retail stores with the help of retailer POS deployed at stores.
"Even after 4yrs since inception, we continue to evolve our processes, we are not afraid to try new things and fail. Where we are today is all because of constantly researching and updating ourselves" states Suresh.
HICCUPS AND TRENDS
There are several challenges, and with every challenge, there lies a potential opportunity like supply chains, customer experience, reach and costs are some of them. There is room for efficiency gain in each of these and hence they are focussing on – availability, accessibility, and affordability. They see technology as one of the biggest enablers in bringing in efficiency and at the same time, human touch allows them to have a direct feed from the stakeholders which further drives innovation. They look at each interaction point as a mutually rewarding long term relationship.
Technology has brought in significant benefits to the Pharma industry at multiple levels, right from manufacturing to the last-mile delivery to the consumer. Information flow has been much faster than ever and the domain that still requires help from the technology is primary care.
MAINTAINING REGULATORY REFORMS
"The nature of zero tolerance around health, safety, and integrity drives every process at EasyMedico. We value quality more than the quantity, while quantity gives us scale in less time, quality rewards in the long run" asserts Suresh.
We strictly follow all the guidelines for storage, dispensing and disposing of medicines. All the medicines are dispensed by a registered pharmacist and stored at a proper temperature conditions as storage conditions indirectly affects the efficacy of medicines
While the cost of medicine has always been the talking point, it has gained pace in recent years across the globe and India is not isolated from that. There is a greater awareness around generic substitutes,biosimilars and bioequivalents. With the cost of hospitalization, treatment is going up; this will continue to gain momentum with an increase in trust due to quality improvement and some endorsements by doctors.
THE INDUSTRIAL TRANSFORMATION
The Pharma industry has certainly evolved, and from the supply chain side, there are visible disruptions, the company today is at the forefront of this change, though not in scale at this moment certainly, they have been ahead of times. Being a true omni channel pharmacy retail chain for a long time with a strong foothold, EasyMedico would aggressively grow retail supply through a new state of the art warehouse and finely engineered processes.
Suresh emphasizes, "The growing competition has not affected us much, as we are always able to find a synergy even in the competition. Our business model allows that flexibility. We are a fulfilment partner and last-mile supplier for anybody and everybody, irrespective of whether revenue comes through our direct customer or the competitors and online players.In a diverse market like India, there is a room for everyone to do well, at the same time those who would continue to grow without increasing the cost base significantly will stay around and get rewarded."
EasyMedico feels that as long as their inventory is utilized and their partners are benefited, they will continue to handle the competition with an open mind. For them, there is always room for good organized retail brand, aggregator & supplier. EasyMedico solves countless issue of an existing retailer and feel that over some time consolidation may happen in online play as well as supply side of it. Today when everything shifting towards online, Suresh feels, "physical footprint will continue to remain relevant, many a time people do prefer personal touch and quick re-check on relevancy and schedule of prescribed medicines at a neighbourhood pharmacy store. Post doctor consultation or even without it, such kind of conversation gives them lot of comfort."
THE CORPORATE ETHOS
At EasyMedico, employees are their assets;respect for an individual is primary whatever pressured situation it may be. In today's environment, each member of the team has clarity on their goal and then there is a role that is constantly evolving. Technology helps identify the trend before it becomes an issue while human touch helps in looking at things from the customer's point of view and come up with the most appropriate solution.
"Brand value is of prime importance to us when it comes to franchise operation; we have a standard format that is followed. We have not gone for masses, but for quality and customer experience, this is visible across all of our franchise stores. It is also true when we on board a non-franchise retailer as Easy Enabled store. They are required to follow laid down processes including use of EasyMedico supplied POS for raising order to ensure they are the main beneficiary at the end in terms of cost, quality and time" added Suresh.
FEATHERS ON THE CAP
While the company started as pure e-commerce venture way back in 2015, looking at India as a market so very diverse, they were quick to understand the need to be an omni channel player and started opening EasyMedico branded physical stores along with continuing with eCommerce ops. They are the largest branded retail chain in central India and also the largest aggregator, supplier of multibrand medicines to traditional retail stores.
The company is looking forward to leading in central India as a single point supplier to the retailer and the largest branded retail chain. EasyMedico is changing the century old habit of retailers, while making them tech-savy, they are also asked to give up "credit"mind set (udhari, also called as site of few days), at the end of each day, EasyMedico has no recoveries / collection due from anyone – i.e. we don't sell on credit.For the last 2 months, they have been growing at 30% in terms of revenue,& retailer on-boarding with EasyMedico POS is at near 50% growth, an additional revenue channel started in mid-July. These numbers would further get a boost with capacity enhancement through a launch of new 5000sqft warehouse in Indore.They are able to maintain good ~15% bounce rate, and quick turnaround time. This along with the inventory level & utilization will further improve with the insight from artificial intelligence & data analytics, something they are watching very closely.
ON THE CARDS – FOR EASYMEDICO
"Our new warehouse of 5000sqft will be operational in Oct. We are growing non-franchise traditional retailers' base by 50% month on month, with a current count of 100 retailers, we will be supplying to almost 500+ retailers in the next 3-4 months. We will also continue to expand our franchise footprint, aim is to open at least one franchise store in each 'Tehsil' of Madhya Pradesh. We are committed to growth while keeping the cost base low." states the CEO.
Growth in Franchise base will speedup as some conversion will happen from on-boarded traditional retailers into EasyMedico franchisee. There is a significant gain in becoming a part of the EasyMedico branded retail chain. Life is much easier for the franchise owner, it's a different league altogether with tech driven touch & feel health & wellness store. Clearly they will continue to enhance their purchase margins with increase in volume. They will launch private label product sometime mid next year, by then the customer base, franchise base, and retailers count would have increased significantly, this network will help the brand promotion &product adoption much faster.
Suresh wraps with, "EasyMedico is largely funded through family and friends, and we expect to go out forfund raising sometime in Dec-Jan. This fund will be utilized for expanding our customer base, capacity expansion, launch of private label products, and technology enhancement."
THE CORE MEMBERS OF THE COMPANY
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