Future Plans
Introduction
The Future plan of a company in broad terms incorporates the following
Vision: What are you building
Mission Statement: What you do, what your product/service is and who your
customers are
Objectives: Your business goals for the next week, month or year
Strategies: How do you plan to achieve your objectives
Action Plan: Steps you will take to action your strategies, including dates/deadlines.
Based on our understanding, we have tried going through several resources like company’s
annual report, CRISIL report, news articles, press releases and other relevant material
available online to get an idea of what the company plans for the future vis-à-vis the above
mentioned key points.
Annual Report
As per Apollo Hospitals’ latest Annual Report (2018-2019), the company’s focus is to now
increase occupancy across all units and enhance specialties at new centres while optimising
overall case mix and strengthening infrastructure at existing centres. Given the focus on
utilising the existing infrastructure better, the present plan envisages adding only 150 beds in
the near future across 1 hospital which will expand the overall network of hospitals to 71.
As such, the focus of the investment plan will be to enhance and upgrade existing
offerings and undertake specific interventions in areas of special emphasis.
The company estimates an investment of ` 2 billion over the next one year.
They aim at addition of the 150 bed Oncology hospital at the Apollo Proton Cancer
Centre campus
The group plans to strengthen its national position in the Oncology COE both in terms
of clinical differentiation and volumes.
Further the recently inaugurated Apollo Proton Cancer Centre in Chennai and the 180-bed
Oncology hospital, will become completely operational over the next 18 months. It is
important to note that currently, this treatment facility is only available in two countries in the
Asia-Pacific region i.e. in China and Japan and India has become only the third country to
offer this treatment protocol.
Press Release
As per a press release on the 25th of September 2019, ‘Apollo Hospitals’ wants to shift to an
Asset Light model.
Under this model, Asset Owner will be different from one who runs the enterprise
Company will focus on taking facilities on contract and would only go for smaller
acquisitions upto ₹300 Cr
Other insights from the press release:
The company plans to go slow on investments and aims to extract benefits from past
investments
The company plans to expand to newer geographies like Kanpur, Nagpur etc
It aims to double share of medical tourism in its revenues to 20 percent by 2022
There is also an attempt to double the share of private labels to 14 per cent of the
pharmacy business revenues in the next two years
CRISIL Report
CRISIL report on Apollo Hospitals gave us the following information pertaining to Apollo
Hospitals’ new initiatives and key/recent developments
New Initiatives
Microsoft has partnered Apollo Hospitals to create an artificial intelligence-focused
network in cardiology to help in better predicting, preventing and managing heart
diseases in the country
APOLLO REACH- to provide healthcare services in Tier II & III markets
Under its - Saving A Child's Heart Initiative (SACHi), AHEL provides pediatric
cardiac care and child heart care for the underprivileged.
AHEL has an interactive patient-centric service called ‘ASK Apollo’, which provides
option to consult a doctor anywhere and anytime at their own convenience
Launched an initiative across 15 hospitals, wherein all non-medical requests from
patients and attenders is captured to increase nursing bandwidth for pure clinical work
Plans to add another 765 beds (brownfield & greenfield) over 5 years at an
expenditure of ₹6,210 million and expand the network to a total of 73 hospitals
Key/Recent Developments
Apollo Hospitals launched the Apollo Protoon Cancer Centre (APCC), an integrated
cancer centre with 150 beds. This makes India the 16th country in the world to offer
proton theory for cancer
The company also launched an online clinical opinion service for cancer patients
around the world
Apollo Hospitals opened a 330 bed Apollomedics Super Speciality Hospital in
Lucknow
AHEL signed management contract with Adlux Group for a 250 super speciality
hospital in Angamaly, Kochi. At the hospital almost 50 beds would be reserved for
critical care
News Articles
As per an article on the Business Standard dated February 25, 2020, Apollo Hospitals has
tied-up with Amazon’s Alexa for booking doctor appointments.
Apollo Hospitals’ Alexa Tie-up
Apollo Hospitals has launched Amazon Alexa Skill- Ask Apollo
This would enable users to access over 5000 doctors across 72 Apollo hospitals
throughout the nation and its pharmacy network using simple voice commands
Ask Apollo Skill enables users to choose Apollo Clinics of their preference and
access over 1500 pharmacies
The skill will allow users to interact with Apollo Hospitals using their Echo Devices
Other Sources
We also got to know about other recent developments in Apollo Hospitals which will play an
important role in what future holds for them. This data has been collected and compiled from
various online sources. Some of the important observations are as follows
Apollo Hospitals has launched ‘Health EMI card’ in partnership with Bajaj Finserv
Indraprastha Delhi Hospitals, Delhi has launched TomoTherapy Radixact X9 for the
treatment of cancer patients
Apollo Hospital has partnered with Bahrain Specialist hospital to fight heart diseases
in Bahrain
They have launched Eastern India’s first comprehensive Foot and Ankle Clinic
They have launched Apollo ProHealth- a first of its kind predictive, proactive and
comprehensive health management program
Analysis
Based on our observation of the above points, what we can conclude is that Apollo Hospitals
has quite evidently tried to mould itself to changing trends in the industry and the world as a
whole. They have made big moves in the fields of digitization, artificial intelligence etc.
They have clear short-term and long-term strategies designed and are advertently taking steps
in those directions. Their aim is to provide best in class facilities to the people of the country
and possibly focus at being the earliest ones to do so.
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