In other words, if you build it, they will come.<\/p>\n
Singh founded Max India in the 1980s, and for roughly 15 years the company was a mini-conglomerate with diversified businesses ranging from pharmaceuticals to telecoms to packaging to electronics. It helped make him staggeringly wealthy\u2014today, his net worth is $725 million, according to Forbes<\/em>\u2014but by 1999, he had lost interest in the company\u2019s various endeavors. \u201cI kind of had it,\u201d he says. \u201cThe things we were doing didn\u2019t mean that much to me from an inner perspective. I began to think about what I really wanted to do with my life, what would excite me, motivate me, engage me, inspire me.\u201d<\/p>\n He realized that he wanted to make a difference in his community. So in 2000, Max India was reinvented as a service-oriented company. \u201cI had this deep, personal desire to get involved in something where business meant more than business, where we were doing something for the social good,\u201d says Singh, who divested 14 of his businesses, freeing up management time and capital. \u201cThe new business would be commercial only in order to do things that touch people\u2019s lives and create an impact. I didn\u2019t want to get into an overcrowded space; I wanted to get into something where I could show the way.\u201d<\/p>\n Analjit Singh shares his entrepreneurial secrets with Dean Freeman.<\/p><\/div>\n In a country where private health insurance is a new phenomenon and the vast majority of the population is uninsured, the new Max India<\/a> brand embraces what Singh calls \u201cthe business of life.\u201d The group, which has a presence in areas as diverse as clinical research services and food packaging, includes one of India\u2019s largest life insurance companies, a health insurance joint venture, and the hospital network Max Healthcare (MHC). Max India\u2019s total annual revenue is INR 10, 624 crore\u2014about $2 billion\u2014while its foundation backs initiatives such as rural immunization programs and palliative care for people with cancer. Although the hospital network isn\u2019t the biggest part of the group\u2014that honor goes, by some distance, to the life insurance unit, Max Life\u2014it exemplifies the social impact that Singh aims for.<\/p>\n He says his choices were both spiritual in nature and strategic. \u201cIt was well known in India that if you got sick and went to a hospital, you were relegated to go to a hole in the wall,\u201d he says. \u201cEven the best private sector hospital was pretty shabby.\u201d The exceptions were the high-end Apollo Hospitals, founded in 1983 and credited with bringing world-class health care to India\u2014albeit at a price. But Singh recognized a systemic problem throughout India: even when medical care was of the finest quality, the patient experience pre- and post-op was not.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s another way of saying that our technical capability was great, but our care capability was zero,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I saw an opportunity. If care is what is lacking in terms of total patient experience, which includes everything from medical outcomes to managing infection, to good nursing with good training, to creating a cheerful environment, to hospitality, then there has to be a market for it. And if the private sector will pay for it, there\u2019s got to be a reasonable business. I\u2019ve always said that in the health care sector one should aim to be reasonably profitable, never profiteer.\u201d<\/p>\n India underwent significant deregulation beginning in 1991, creating a variety of opportunities for the private sector. Over the next decade, Singh says, \u201cIndians were enjoying a new world of better packaged products and state-of-the-art telecom, airline, and banking services.\u201d Why, he asked, should health care get left behind?<\/p>\n Although government employees are covered by a government health care plan in India, there\u2019s no national health insurance available to the private sector. \u201cEither a company covers your health needs as a part of your employment deal, or a sponsor covers you, or you\u2019re on your own,\u201d says Singh. That\u2019s why hole-in-the-wall facilities were overcrowded; they offered treatment for a dollar. \u201cWe felt that if we came up with a very good quality product and service, there was a market waiting to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n In MHC\u2019s early days, it built a clinic that was open from eight in the morning until eight at night and charged patients a fee of about $20. Singh visited one day, and noticed low-income workers sitting in the lobby. \u201cI wanted to find out what was driving these people here, when they could get treatment elsewhere for a dollar,\u201d he says. \u201cThe answer was, \u2018When we go into those shabby kinds of places, we need to wait for three or four hours in the heat. We don\u2019t know when our turn will come. We don\u2019t know if we can go back if things go wrong. When we come here, we sit in an air-conditioned environment, we are seen within 10 minutes of the appointed time, we get a registration number, and if we have a problem we can call back or we can come back.\u2019 So we discovered that there was, indeed, a market.\u201d<\/p>\n As MHC opened its hospitals, a commitment was made not just to providing the finest medical care, but excellent service. \u201cWe had to raise the game by offering what I call a total patient experience, a total customer experience,\u201d says Singh, a 2013 BU Distinguished Alumni Award winner. \u201cThat goes from keeping the floors scrubbed and the loos clean to the smell of coffee as you enter the lobby. We have little caf\u00e9s installed in every lobby, because I want patients to get a smell of coffee when they walk in, not the smell of a hospital. . . . Our patients are greeted as they come in, and ushered to their room. There is multidisciplinary care by doctors, and high-quality nursing. Someone is there to attend to the patients at all times and answer questions. We installed IT, so that we could create health records for patients.\u201d<\/p>\n MHC runs 12 hospitals with a total of 2,200 beds at 9 sites in northern India, with more on the way. There are two general hospitals, and the rest are what Singh calls \u201csuper specialty\u201d hospitals, with centers devoted to fields like cardiology, oncology, and neurology. \u201cWe stay focused in the north, rather than have a presence all over India, because we feel that\u2019s how we can control quality,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Singh\u2019s vision has dramatically altered the health care landscape in his country. \u201cUpping the ante on medical outcomes, clinical excellence, and service excellence was a game changer,\u201d he says. \u201cIt led to a whole new sector developing, and a lot of people followed through and jumped into the fray. It\u2019s fair to say we were responsible for that.\u201d<\/p>\n A Max Healthcare hospital in Delhi, India. Photo by Amit Kumar\/The India Today Group\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n His impact has also caught the attention of business leaders outside of India, according to former CEO of Quest Diagnostics Kenneth W. Freeman<\/a>, Allen Questrom Professor and Dean.<\/p>\n \u201cThrough the powerful combination of identifying major growth opportunities, selecting the right CEOs and corporate partners for the various lines of business, and gaining access to financial capital, Max India has become widely recognized inside and outside India for excellence in health services,\u201d says Freeman, a director of medical device specialists Accellent<\/a> and a former member of the Healthcare Leadership Council<\/a>. \u201cAnaljit\u2019s focus on delighting the customer represents a transformational change in India, to the point that Max India is widely respected and benchmarked by other companies.\u201d<\/p>\n The number of hole-in-the-wall facilities has been diminishing, which is due in part to the financial gains to be made by selling off these properties. But there is another, more important reason contributing to their decline. \u201cSkill is taking over, brand is taking over, quality is becoming more relevant,\u201d says Singh. \u201cAt Max, 80 percent of our patients are middle class or above, but we also treat lower-income people. And that\u2019s because their employers and sponsors are sending them to us and Apollo and Fortis, a third high-quality chain, rather than to the places they used to send them for care.\u201d<\/p>\n Investment in health care from the private sector continues to grow, and Singh says the government \u201chas embraced and accepted\u201d that health care is going to be increasingly privatized. \u201cOur funds come from capital markets, private equity players, and private capital, and people are looking for a reasonable return,\u201d he says. \u201cWe can\u2019t give it away. But we have a strong sense of corporate responsibility, and we have certain obligations of free treatment, both outpatient and inpatient, which we try to fulfill as responsible citizens of society.\u201d<\/p>\n Singh has since expanded the company into the hospitality field with a wellness resort; the company\u2019s next venture is a senior community that will embrace both independent and assisted living. \u201cIt\u2019s become part of the life of the company to think about spin-offs to our health care business that offer unique opportunities and choices,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Singh says his approach to Max India can apply to all businesses. \u201cIt\u2019s about commitment, about focus, about a sense of place .\u2009.\u2009.\u2009about not taking anything for granted, about a raison d\u2019etre. It\u2019s not about skimming the cream. I also believe that people do better when they\u2019re passionate about something. So if people do better, it stands to reason that their business must do better as well.\u201d It\u2019s a conviction that Singh can back up\u2014his businesses are<\/em> successful. The life insurance company he chairs has 287 offices in 216 cities and has been named an Indian \u201csuperbrand.\u201d Most Indian\u2014even global\u2014companies would take just one of those achievements. And yet underpinning Max Life is a mission that wouldn\u2019t be out of place on the website of a nonprofit\u2014the first line is about being honest; the last about contributing \u201cto society by supporting causes in health and well-being.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe central theme of what you want to do, the central idea must resonate with you, or it\u2019s not going to work,\u201d says Singh. \u201cThe connection is very important: you\u2019ve got to do what is right, and do it right.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Staying healthy in India isn\u2019t easy: the country is ranked 167th in the world for health care expenditure and 163rd for life expectancy. A grim diagnosis. Like many things in the world\u2019s fourth-largest economy, that\u2019s changing\u2014and fast. And much of it has to do with Analjit Singh (BSBA\u201977, MBA\u201979). In the 1980s, he built a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5806,"featured_media":0,"parent":1164,"menu_order":11,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"story.php","meta":[],"yoast_head":"\n![](\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/buniverse\/data\/thumbs\/5652\/6db308484830bddc9ea50c1b645ba3f23798295d_472825176\/thumb_l.jpg\")
<\/div><\/div><\/div>\u201cI believe that people do better when they\u2019re passionate about something.\u201d<\/span><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n
![](\"\/questrom-magazine\/files\/2014\/07\/life-saver-88937991.jpg\")