The Hindu Business Line : Health files

Ravan Boddu, CEO of iSoft, a products company that develops software for the healthcare industry, feels this is an area where India has a lot of advantage.

The software investment by hospitals will definitely save lives by making patients records available, invaluable in times of emergencies like accidents.

In January 2001 when he started the Indian operations of iSoft from Chennai, "I was its lone staff member and was desperately hunting for people; and was interviewing people in Pizza Hut! Nobody believed that a company called iSoft existed," recalls Ravan Boddu, the CEO of iSoft, which develops software for the healthcare industry. But then it was only a small $25-million company in terms of revenue; last year the number crossed the $460-million mark. But in those days not only was the brand unknown, "the IT market also was not too great and it was difficult to get people to work for us." But slowly he found the right people and today the company employs 1,600 people.

Boddu grew up in a small village near Ongole, which had no school and it was a 2-mile walk to the nearest school every day. He studied in the Telugu medium and "was not very academic in my early days, though my father used to teach me some English. But it was my mother, herself illiterate, who motivated me to study well." But for the mother it was a tough decision to send her only son to a high school that was 50 km away. Next he did mechanical engineering — a dream from his childhood — from the REC in Allahabad in 1981 and followed it up with a Masters in computer science from the Osmania University in Hyderabad.

His entire college education was on scholarships — "even from that, part of the money went on books and part to buy gifts for my Mom" — and in 1986 when Boddu managed to get a job with Usha Computers in Delhi through a campus interview at a grand salary of Rs 2,200, his family was thrilled. A year later, he moved to Chennai to join a smaller company even taking a salary cut, because he was engaged and "wanted to spend time with my fiancée," he smiles.

In 1989 he got a job with KPMG in the UK. But barely three years in the UK, and he decided to return to Chennai because his wife was not comfortable with the damp, cold weather there. But then he got an offer from Atlanta "and since the weather in Atlanta is like Chennai weather, I convinced my wife that we should go there."

Sponsoring children's education

After an 8-year stint in Atlanta, he decided to return home because "I wanted to do something for society, particularly in education. We can help the poor with monetary benefits but unless we step up their education, they, and with them the country will not move forward," he says.

Today he sponsors the education of several children in his village and also donates to CRY and Worldvision. "Also my heart was always here; I never really felt a part of that society," he says.

So have things changed today on that front?

"Of course. Today one is accepted as an Indian anywhere in the world, but in those days we definitely used to take a step back as foreigners, but things are different now."

In November 2000, he decided to return and even got a job as a director in e-commerce at Cognizant Technology Solutions, but never joined. When he called his friends in KPMG, UK, to update them on his decision, "they said, `we're planning to start an office in India so why don't you do that?' iSoft was then part of KPMG; "when I was at KPMG we had started a small division called Healthcare Practice. That was later spun off as iSoft." He took up the opportunity, and the venture did not require much capital as the group was funding it and it was already a listed company on the London Stock Exchange.

His is a products company and he thinks this is an area of the future where India has a lot of advantage. iSoft makes products to "cater end-to-end in the healthcare industry at every point the patient touches, from the labs, pharmacy and clinicals." The product maintains the patient information from birth to death, recording all major episodes and the information is available to the doctor/nurse at the tap of a key. It has 1,800 clients in hospitals and GPs outside India, having captured 60 per cent of the market share in the UK and with a presence in Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand and Ireland.

Though it does not yet make products for the Indian healthcare industry, Boddu says India is on their radar for the future.

A challenge before the company, which too faces an attrition rate of 15-16 per cent, is to find architects and domain specialists in the healthcare area, which is rather difficult, he says. Finding quality people is always an issue "but we recruit freshers from engineering colleges and train them; we've also recruited some doctors from campuses and put them on domain training, and they are very happy to do this work."

A sea change

Referring to the changing image of India in the developed world, Boddu says, "Earlier, I was not comfortable in the UK, I could see a condescending attitude in regions like London. But in professional environment, even in those days, this was not an issue either in the UK or the US. But today the dependency is the other way round; now Americans are looking for jobs in India; a lot of people from Germany, UK and Netherlands are looking for jobs with us here."

The main reason for this is the professional challenge of working on a product, which, he thinks, will make a huge difference in the healthcare industry. "This product's brand name is Lorenzo and it is highly patient-centric and has all kinds of solutions from chemicals and labs management, to radiology, pharma, etc. It is service-oriented and based on .net technology. Many of our employees worldwide would love to work on and contribute to the change it will bring in the healthcare industry," he says.

On the perception that the IT/ITeS industry is changing the cultural ethos of India by bringing a new set of moral values, an excessive consumerist culture, etc, Boddu says the industry has both its pluses and minuses. "On the one hand it has given fantastic opportunities to women — over 30 per cent of our staff are women and they are great contributors both in performance and commitment — it is mentally and not physically laborious work. From that angle, IT has made many women financially independent, but at the same time on the flip side, it is an individual choice and we can't generalise. It's not IT but the money that the profession generates which leads people to be independent and make personal choices and change their lifestyle." While some aspects of this worry him, "we can't always remain the same. I'm different from my parents and my two kids are different from me."

On the rising cost of healthcare which puts quality care beyond the reach of most Indians and whether IT can help reduce costs, he says, "IT will raise the efficiency in the system but it is not going to reduce the cost, because the labour cost in our hospitals is not really high, compared to the IT sector. But the software investment by hospitals will definitely save lives by making patients' records available, invaluable in times of emergencies like accidents. He thinks with health insurance growing, hospitals will have no choice except keep computerised patient data; "it's only a matter of time."

His dream for iSoft is to make it a leader in supplying healthcare products. "We are pioneers in India to do this from concept to delivery; in the last five years we've been growing at 60-70 per cent a year."

On his unusual first name, Boddu has this explanation. "My father is an atheist... and I think it's more a reactive response. I always had a problem with my name in school and would get teased all the time. But after school it hasn't bothered me much."

So how religious is he?

"Well, I'm a very practical person; we go to a temple once in a while, as also to Tirupati."

Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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