Linde India recently rebranded itself. How would it position itself in India?
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Biswarup Ghosh
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Since its inception almost eight decades back, Linde India (formerly BOC India) has been closely associated with the Indian healthcare industry. BOC India became a part of Linde Group following the acquisition of the BOC Group Worldwide in 2006.
Linde India – Healthcare is a quality product supplier of medical gases conforming to the Indian Pharmacopeia (IP) standards and employs the best operating practices in manufacturing, safety, storage and distribution.
In the coming years, Linde India – Healthcare would not only provide the healthcare industry with medical gases but also like to emerge as a ‘total gas management solution provider’ for supplying high-quality medical oxygen and other gases like nitrous oxide, carbon-dioxide and nitrogen, etc. as well as taking care of the intricacies of setting up the medical gas pipeline services (MGPS) to a large number of consumers across India. Our thrust would be to emerge as a ‘one-stop-solution’ for all medical gases management. Today, we can claim that no other medical gas company in the country provides such comprehensive solutions in terms of total gas management.
What are the key strengths of Linde India?
For nearly the last eight decades that we have been operating in India, Linde India has always had the best manufacturing and operating practices across the globe in its endeavour to provide the best possible service and products to our consumers.
Linde India owns and operates India’s largest air separation plant in Jamshedpur, runs nine air separation plants and 14 filling stations, located in the important cities across the country. We stay closely aligned with clinical progress and continue to design and redesign solutions that meet the unique needs of healthcare professionals and patients. We support our customers in every aspect of the delivery and use of medical gases, including logistics, safety systems, technical solutions, training and extensive customer service, which acts as our key strength areas.
What are the different types of medical gases produced for Indian consumers?
Our medical gases production portfolio offers medical oxygen, Entonox (required for delivery of gyne patients), medical air, medical carbon dioxide, medical nitrogen. We also provide oxygen concentrators for home oxygen therapy.
Tell us about Linde India’s manufacturing, storing and distribution system.
Our state-of-the-art production sites adhere to stringent norms of quality, thereby delivering and assuring reliability of products. The gas cylinders used by Linde India are of PESO standards while our manufacturing plants are ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certified.
Linde India has invested substantially to create this infrastructure backbone and would invest further, if needed, to maintain the highest quality standards.
Who are the leading healthcare institutions/ companies associated with Linde India?
The response from the healthcare institutions of the country have been very positive. Almost all the big names of the healthcare industry, be it in the government sector or the private sector, are associated with us. The PGIMER, Chandigarh; CMC, Vellore; SSKM Hospital, Kolkata; CMRI; BM Birla Heart Research Center, Woodlands Hospitals, Tata Medical Center, Rajarhat Fortis Hospital, Kolkata are some of the leading names where we are supplying medical gases and in some we are providing the total gas management solutions to the clients.
Moreover, the clients are extremely positive and encouraging about our new role as a total gas management solution provider. We have already successfully provided total gas management solutions to hospitals in Kolkata like Tata Medical Center -Rajarhat and Woodlands Hospital.
Creation of a robust distribution and delivery system is an important element of your business. Tell us more about it.
At Linde India we strictly adhere to standard operating procedures (SOPs) in terms of storage, distribution and delivery mechanism. We ensure ‘zero per cent error’ in the entire process.
To cater to all the innumerable issues of managing medical gases, like supply, monitoring, system maintenance, medical gas compliance standards and regulations, comprehensive solutions like QI medical gas, services encompas specialist support to ensure that medical gas supply systems and routines meet best practice standards for quality, safety, reliability and efficiency.
What are the opportunities in Indian healthcare for Linde India – Healthcare in terms of new business generation?
The Indian healthcare industry is expected to grow at a phenomenal rate in the coming years, which would throw up huge opportunities for companies like us. The action would now move to the Tier-II cities. We continuously strive to innovate for our customers with a passion to excel, empowering them in the process and our global footprint ensures we thrive through diversity. Our product offering of complete hospital care business of medical gases and medical gas pipelines should be the key driver for new business generation.
What are your future plans?
In the coming few years, we want to strengthen our foothold in the tier-II cities of the country. So, we are setting up medical gas manufacturing and filling facilities in Jaipur, Chandigarh and Raipur in this calendar year. These facilities will basically focus on the gas-cylinder business of the company.
We would add few more tier – II cities in the next year. Another focus area would be to strengthen our marketing network in the homecare segment, basically for serving chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and other cardiac-diseases affected patients who need to undergo long term oxygen therapy (LTOT).