Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Is the Novo Medical Center a Star Business?


The Novo Medical Centers is a venture funded business which provides day care surgeries in India.

Is this a star business?

Positives:
Revenues - They can probably grow revenues faster than 15% a year for the next several years.
Market Leadership - They are creating a whole new category by dividing the surgery business into day care surgery (laproscopy, arthroscopy, D and C, biopsy etc.) and longer care surgery (requiring a longer period of post-operative care.) They are the leaders in short stay surgeries.
Scalability - Because the space needed for their business model is relatively lesser than the average hospital, they can find real estate to expand in India pretty easily.
Sales channels - Doctors are the ones who tell their patients about Novo medical centers and get them to come in to Novo.
Ability for competition to enter the space - The existing competition is from small and large hospitals. However, once a chain of Novo Medical Centers is set up it will take a lot of work for competition to replicate what Novo is doing.
Value of brand and mind share - If the brand is established all across India, in 20 years this company can become a dominant player. It will offer standardization of services to patients.

Negatives:
Government regulation - The medical business is heavily regulated.
Exposure to black swans - This is what is most disturbing to me. The company is vulnerable to black swans. It is too easy for a procedure to go wrong causing bad press, legal liability or a clamp down by Government.
Vendor power - Their "vendors" are super-specialist doctors who are typically associated with large hospitals. To get these doctors to come and work at their facilities requires Novo Medical to share a large part of revenues with their doctors. Some doctors may choose Novo for convenience and responsiveness (ease of scheduling surgeries, better facilities, more proactive management etc.) but in the end, it will be the money that drives doctors to choose Novo versus other hospitals. In this case, the profitability of Novo may be under question.

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