Cover Story

Indian Diagnostics Industry -
Challenges & Opportunities Post Corona Pandemic

NABL as a quality-certification and assurance organization is ensuring that they bring all large and small pathological laboratories within their ambit, and ensure that the smaller labs provide the same / comparable test quality as the bigger ones, even as they overcome the hurdles of economies of scale.

Genesis Of The Company & Professional Journey

My father Lalit Mahajan had a vision of making India self-reliant in the space of healthcare and in-vitro diagnostics. This resulted in J Mitra & Company becoming established in 1969, and quickly becoming a leading player in the IVD space. As the economy grew and liberalization happened, it became apparent that the rules and regulations in the country were not in favour of homegrown companies.

Joining my father in his noble pursuit was a natural decision. Realizing that the next phase of expansion and growth had to be driven through a concerted marketing push, I completed by MBA and took over the helm of the company 21 years back. It was at this juncture that I was mandated to drive the next growth impetus for the company. I undertook the onerous task of taking the company fully global, to carve out newer markets so that the onset of relatively cheaper (though at times, lesser quality) imported diagnostic products would not hamper our growth.

I focused my attention towards further consolidation of the domestic business, while continuously increasing the international footprint, driving business strategy, Sales & Marketing, product development and customer service through constant innovation and automations. The journey has been all about increasing our footprint and market share in international markets.

This 50-year old organisation has grown from strength to strength, identifying the changing business dynamics and adapting and innovating to meet the ever-changing needs of the masses.

J Mitra & Company has been steadfast in its dominance of the IVD segment, not just in India, but across the overall international arena. It is present across all the continents, and its dominant presence includes regions like – Europe, Latin America, Middle- East, Africa, SAARC, South-East Asia – a total of over 45 countries.

We also have a strong R&D team, and this has resulted in more than 55 patents, the highest for any company in India.

Jatin’s Corporate Roles & Responsibilities

Innovation and business foresight are extremely important for the survival of any business. A robust business continuity plan is a must to mitigate the negative impact of large-scale disruptions. Standard operating procedures help in ensuring that most of the concern aspects have been thought of, ideated, and actionable defined. Flexibility and adaptability must be incorporated in the business ethos.

For us, to mitigate heartaches in a business arena, we have focused on 4 key areas

Integrity and Fair Play – We are always fair in all our dealings. Consequently, most of our partnerships, relationships, workforce have stood by us permanently, in many cases from the very beginning. Our employee retention is one of the best in the industry. We retain the best talent and partnerships available in the country which has its own positive rub-off on our overall market performance.

Quality – There is no #2 position when it comes to quality. We utilise the best-available raw material, competent manpower to ensure that our products are the best. And we deploy stringent quality control and testing to ensure that we meet the quality norms as laid down in European and American countries. We always endeavour to be the gold standard in IVD solutions.

R&D, Innovation and Perseverance – Extensive R&D ensures that our products provide the best all-round benefits to both the users and the end-patients – in terms of price-point, accuracy and ease-of-use. Since these innovations are very costly and time consuming, it has been our perseverance that has seen us through.

Staying ahead of the Competition – Business foresight ensured that we stayed ahead of the competition, and continued to expand into newer markets and with newer products. We also continued to strongly implement our intellectual property rights so that our business interests are not adversely impacted.

Our corporate culture ensures that people are entrusted and empowered to take decisions, based on predefined guidelines. Thus, there have been very few bottlenecks, all resulting in almost trouble-free business operations.

One challenge that we recently faced was that related to Corona and lockdown – but we were able to tackle it satisfactorily with immediate support from the government which recognised our operations as one that should be classified under the essential services. We were able to continue operations with limited manpower availability, and constraints on the supply and logistics side.