Interview

'We are Identifying Overseas Suppliers for Additional Product Range'

Diabetik Foot Care India has been steadily growing. Elango Devy, Chief Executive, Diabetik Foot Care India speaks on the company's growth and future plans. Excerpts:

Elango Devy

Tell us something about the company's significant achievements

The greatest achievement for us this year is the increase in the export volume and increase sale in the North and Northeast Indian market. Our export sales volume has increased three fold. Our sales in the North and Northeast is increased by 25 per cent. On top of this, the encouraging news is that we are also adding a few new products. Some of them are import substitute.

What is the positioning of your company now? Would you wish to be a product oriented company or service oriented company?

We have installed more than 3,530 of our equipments to various centers in India. Our customers consider our company as a complete service provider for this segment and they rate our products are the best. We are confidently announcing that our product failure rate is very minimum and our customers consider us as one the best company to rely on. We are definitely a product- oriented company, but could able to penetrate the market well because our after sale service.

Can you tell us which segment of medical device market do you represent? Describe your product portfolio to us.

Our medical devices are for a small, but is the need of the hour in medical profession - diabetes. Our target customers are the diabetic foot management service providers covering Diabetologists, Physicians, Vascular Surgeons, Podiatrists, Plastic Surgeons, Endocrinologists and Physiotherapists.

Our products are categorised as circulatory products, neuropathy products and foot care products. Most of them are used for the diagnosis and few are for therapeutic applications. Our product portfolio as follows:

Circulatory Products:

• Hand held vascular doppler LifeDop L150R.
• Table Top vascular doppler VERSADOP & VERSADOP Dx.
• Doppler recorder DOPPLEX.
• PC based vascular doppler recorders VERSALAB LE & VERSALAB Dx.
• Automated AB Index PC based vascular doppler VERSALAB Auto.
• Neuropathy Screening Tool VIBROSCREEN.
• Neuropathy Assessment Tool VIBRODOP.
• Monofilament 10gm.
• Digital Biothesiometer VIBROMETER.
• Thermometry Hot/Cold.
• Neuropathy Analyser VIBROTHERM Dx.
• Cardiac Autonomic Neuropathy System Analyser CANS504.
• Foot Imprinter HARRIS MAT.
• Simple plantar pressure measurement system PODIASCAN.
• Pedography emed & pedar.
• IR foot thermometer.
• Electric Pedicure file PEDINOVA III.
• IR LED Light therapy NEUROLITE.
• Neuromuscular stimulator NEUROSTIM.
• Electronic Pain Killer TENS.

Are you tapping the potential of international market?

We are dedicating ourselves for increasing our international sales. Presently, we are having distributor in Denmark, China, Muscat for GCC countries and Nigeria and they are actively involved in promoting our products. The volume of sale is increasing through them. We are participating in international medical conferences, relevant to our segment by displaying our products, held across the globe.
Our web promotion activity is on the increase and we do aggressive web promotion for tapping the international potential and this is another reason for our increased sales from the export market. We also directly sell our product for the areas not represented by the international dealers and we are also in the process of identifying channel partners in overseas to represent our products.

What market opportunities and trends do you witness in overall medical devices market? How do you plan to tap it?

The opportunities are in the increase from domestic and international market. We feel it is the right time to attract them by providing quality products and better after sale service. It is common for all the segments of medical devices market. We would like to utilize this by increasing are reach by adding more dealer services and additional sales force.

According to you, what are the obstacles that plague the Indian healthcare market? Does it affect your business and how do you plan to overcome them?

The main obstacle in the Indian market is that no standard is being adopted for medical devices actively. However, recently the central Government has formed a committee to workout a standard which equivalent to any standard used in developed countries. Unless we do not have the standards or not practicing standards would certainly affect the Indian manufacturers. Imported medical devices meets the international standards and they will dominate the Indian market of we fail to adopt to this situation. We have decided to adhere to some international standards and working on obtaining ISO13485 and CE marking.

How do you cater to the diverse needs of your customers and what is the company's strength and USP in India?

It is difficult to cater to the needs of every customer but the opportunities are plenty and any medical device manufacturing company that reads the customer need will succeed in their goal. We are interacting with our segment of customers and try to bring in more products for the benefit of patients.

The greatest strength are our customers. They interact with us actively with their ideas and we participate with them in developing their idea into a product within a short span of time. Our design team work with the customer support team to meet their demand

Kindly tell us about your market spread will relation to your sales & dealer network.

We would not say, we are spread all over the country but have modest coverage to take care of all India need. We are steadily increasing our customer support to all parts of the country. By this year end, we would have complete coverage by providing customer support engineers and this would result in increase of sale by 50 per cent.

What are your expansion plans? Any plans of alliance with international majors?

Our agenda for this year is to increase our reach by adding more dealer network and customer support engineers in terms of marketing. We are parallely improving our infrastructure to raise our standards and commitment towards providing a better product to the nation. We are also in the process of identifying overseas suppliers for our segment for additional product range. We have already added a few products.
We are working with an European company, who are the market leaders in Europe for arranging our products in their brand for large volume sale. If that happens, our products will be seen in every centre dealing with our segment of products.