T1 Health on an L1 Diet ... Really???

The raging pandemic has brought a number of things in question, the biggest being the investment and thoughtfulness, rather the lack of it, over the last many years for establishing hi-quality healthcare infrastructure in the country, and second - the corrupt parallel ecosystem that sustains this inefficient system and feeds on its inefficiency and patient fear.

Good health – be it that of people, systems or infrastructure, needs quality nutrition – quality food for human health or quality manpower, resources and investment for healthcare systems and infrastructure.

Most folks in Sales will be able to recall these odd situations with Government contracts and huge tenders. The winner gets decided based on a T1 (Technically best) and L1 (Lowest Cost) Criteria. No matter who ends up being T1, invariably the L1 walks away with the business since the weightage given to cost, almost always, outweighs what’s given to technology and quality.

The question we are asking is - Are we expecting to build a T1 Healthcare Infrastructure with an L1 investment – ask your 10 year old that question and even he will tell you – IMPOSSIBLE !!!

We see a parallel of this in our business – earlier this February I was in Byadagi – the second largest Chilli market in Asia from where most large FMCG brands source their chillies. The best grade chilli in Byadagi sells between Rs. 350 – 450 a KG depending on the season. Guess the grade which one of the known Indian FMCG brands was scouting for – 30 Rupees a KG, yes THIRTY RUPEES. The reason - lowest cost - that's what customers want. The local chilli merchants were unambiguous when they said “Sir, we would never feed this to our children”. In the foods business today, the above is true for almost all categories.

Again, the question we are asking is - Are we expecting to build T1 Health on an L1 Diet … Really? Someone gather the 10 year olds please 😊

Signing off

Yogeel