"Our stores are unique in the sense that they bring in the pharmacy and diagnostics."
Gaurav Agarwal, Co-Founder, Tata 1mg in an exclusive conversation with BW Businessworld speaks about digital strategy for the company, expansion and the new innovations planned.
How have the last few months been for the company?
The last few months have been phenomenal for Tata 1mg. The whole healthcare industry has witnessed massive growth for the last couple of years as Covid ravaged the country over multiple waves. As the pandemic has receded, two things have happened: one, the disproportionate growth witnessed during the peaks of the pandemic is no longer sustained (visible in earnings of diagnostics players, for example) and, second, the offline model has seen a significant comeback. Despite these headwinds over the last few months, Tata 1mg has registered strong growth of 25 per cent quarter on quarter and has gained market share of up to 2 percentage points. This has been achieved in an environment where competition has resorted to deep discounts and high-decibel marketing.
We are serving more customers than ever at service levels that are better than ever. Our ePharmacy and eDiagnostics NPS’ (Net Promoter Score) are north of 70, even when for the healthcare industry, this figure is typically in low teens. In top cities, we are routinely delivering pharmacy orders in under 3 hours and diagnostics reports in under 6 hours. All of this has been possible due to our deep investments in supply chain technology over the last couple of years. Over the last few months, we have also launched key new initiatives in the retail as well as corporate health and wellness space. We now have 12 retail stores across NCR and Jaipur, and the response to them has been extremely strong. We are hitting almost all store success metrics 2-3 months ahead of schedule.
Our stores are unique in the sense that they bring in pharmacy and diagnostics together, and hence their performance is a great validation of our hypothesis that customers want an integrated healthcare experience that offers high quality at the right price. Our corporate health and wellness business is one of our fastest growing lines of business and our integrated healthcare services stack with benefits and co pay capabilities is getting a lot of traction and interest – we already service over 9 lakh corporate employees across 150+ corporates.
Tell us about your digital strategy and your focus on data privacy.
As a responsible healthcare company, we have always been at the forefront of data privacy. On the systems front, we follow a 360-degree approach to protecting customer data. Our organisation is ISO 27001 certified. Our internal systems implement a robust role-based access control system, encryption of all PII data at rest and in transit, and comprehensive audit logging and monitoring anytime a customer’s details are accessed even by those with authorisation. On the edge, we routinely perform penetration tests and security audits, ensuring that our systems and customer data stay safe and secure.
What makes you stand out?
At Tata 1mg, our mission from Day 0 has been to build an integrated healthcare platform that makes healthcare understandable, accessible, and affordable. Our ‘content first’ approach, integrated services platform and high-quality service offerings are what make us unique.
Any new offerings or innovations planned for the months ahead?
As usual, we will continue to see a lot of service innovations. We are already experimenting with faster deliveries, 24/7 deliveries, smart reports in diagnostics, services such as ECG at home, etc. As a full new offering, a lot of our focus currently is on our corporate health and wellness solution. We have over 50 paying corporations, and this is an area where a significant amount of product, technology and supply chain work is happening. Lastly, consumers will see an increasing number of Tata 1mg stores in their vicinity. Our stores are run on a unique concept called ‘endless aisle.’ This means that through our very extensive supply chain network, we provide an unparalleled inventory range to users, not just in pharmaceuticals but also in categories like Ayurveda, homeopathy, nutraceuticals, wellness, and medical devices. All Tata 1mg stores offer best-in-class pharmacy, diagnostics, and e-consultation under one roof.
Tell us about your expansion plans.
Our pharmacy business delivers pan India and covers over 20,000+ pin codes. While our presence is strong across the country, we are in the process of setting up multiple fulfillment centres to reduce the time it takes to deliver medicines and other health products to a customer’s home. We plan to have over 50 fulfilment centres across the country by the end of the year. We are also looking at doubling our footprint of labs over the next 12 months, in our effort to deliver worldclass service experience to our customers and expand our network of serviceable locations. We are also continuously expanding our catalog to offer a comprehensive range of tests to address the emerging needs of diagnostics across routine, specialised, and esoteric tests. We currently have 12 Tata 1mg stores and plan to have 100 by the end of the year.
