PROJECT REPORT

(Practo)

Submitted to
Prof. Gayathri Sampath

Submitted by:
Group No 1
SUYASH SHARMA- A001
MITHULL SINGH-A002
RITIKA CHAWLA-A003
MIHIR KHARA-A004
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Content Page number

Table of content 2
Practo 3
Initial Days 3
Investors and Funding 4
Revenue Model 4
Current Market landscape 5
SWOT 6
Porter’s 5 forces model 7
Future Trends and opportunities 8
Competencies and emerging opportunities 9
Recommendation for Practo 11
Action Plan 12
References 13
Exhibits 14
Interview Transcripts 20

2
PRACTO:
Established in the year 2008, Practo is a cloud-based healthcare service company, based in
Bangalore, India. Practo aims at helping mankind to live healthier and longer by providing
easy access to quality healthcare. The company is a one stop solution for all health-related
problems and primarily focuses on its patient’s experience. The company’s mobile app offers
its users a platform to consult with doctors across specializations, maintain one’s health
records, book a health test, order medicines as well as have an online consultation on the go.

The company currently has over 300 million users using its platform to consult over 100,000
doctors located across 20,000 hospitals. In 2016, the company reached a market share 55% in
terms of the number of doctors using their platform. Practo has its consumer and software
business in 5 countries and their enterprise software business in another 10. Practo currently
averages 50 million appointments in a year across these countries.

Practo was founded by two men- Shashank ND, currently the CEO and Abhinav Lal, who is
the current CTO, after Shashank faced troubles finding the right doctor for his ailing father.
He had to go through all the available medical records, which were not of much help as not
much information was available in it. Medical data in India was not governed by a single
central body and the data and information of a doctor varied from state to state. Not much
information about the doctor was present in these records either.

Shashank, through Practo, set out to solve this problem of information asymmetry and
wanted to build a digital platform where people across the country could access doctor’s
information readily without having to face the same troubles which he had to deal with.

INITIAL DAYS:

Practo started off by scouting for doctors across the 7 metropolitan cities in India, namely,
Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Kolkata. This was a tactical
move as metro cities tended to have a large chuck of floating population from other parts of
the country who would value and benefit the most from Practo’s offering. It employed about
400 employees for this task who meticulously went to clinics in these cities, sat with the
doctors and explained Practo’s vision and goal to them. Once they got the doctors on board,
Practo collected their information, their clinic details, their expertise, their availabilities, took
photos of their clinics and added all these details into their digital medical records (which
they eventually made it public in 2017 once they had enough information.) Post 2016, they
widened their search and started reaching out to doctors in state capitals and tier-2 cities in

3
southern India. This process was not easy, and it took a lot of time and effort convincing the
doctors about the need for such a platform. Practo, however, takes pride in acknowledging
the fact that they were the pioneers in collecting such kind of data in the country.

INVESTORS AND FUNDING:

Practo has raised a sum of $228.2 million USD in the last eight years across 7 rounds of
funding. The 1st round of funding (Series A) for the company happened in 2012. Sequoia
Capital was the company to 1st fund Practo and a total sum of $4 million USD was invested
into Practo. The series-B funding took place in 2015 with Practo receiving $30 million USD
again from Sequoia Capital India, a Bangalore based venture capitalist. Series C & D took
place in 2015 and 2017 respectively with Tencent Holdings, an internet service portal based
out of China, being the lead investor on both the occasions. Another round of series D
funding that took place in August 2020 helped Practo raise a further $32 million USD with
the AIA Group form Hong Kong being the lead investor. Practo currently displays nine
companies as its investors on its website.

REVENUE MODEL:

Practo has never charged a commission fee from the end users i.e., its customers. All that
Practo has hoped for from its customers was organic growth. It is the doctors that provide
Practo their revenue. Practo offers them a SaaS based software to maintain their patient data
that includes the next visit, vaccination chart, blood test due dates. The software also
manages to keep a track of their appointments and consultations, their clinic’s accounting,
and inventory management too. Practo’s offering is like a small-scale ERP system that
includes all the necessary things that a clinic would require to function seamlessly. Practo, in
fact, started off as a SaaS software for the healthcare industry provided on the cloud with a
mobile app or a browser for its doctors to login into. The subscription packages ranged from
monthly, quarterly, to 3 years and 5 years and the model did not charge the doctor based on
number of appointments they received from their app. So, whether the doctor saw 100
patients or 1000 patients, Practo received a constant revenue.

Supply and demand from the doctors and patients respectively drive the grow of Practo. Their
algorithm auto adjusts the positions of the clinics based on the number of patients visiting it
via the Practo app. Hence, another source of revenue for the company has been through
promotion of clinics in their application and website where clinics were displayed on the top

4
with a “sponsored” tag beside it. Practo does not run other types of advertisements which are
commonly found on webpages and social media platforms.

Practo recently launched a health plan that offers its end users unlimited online consultations
starting at 399 per month. This competitive pricing was to attract its customers towards the
online consultation domain. The subscription plans are also available annually.

CURRENT MARKET LANDSCAPE:

The market space for the healthcare segment in India consists of multiple domains to carter to
the needs of consumers. The major distinct domains include (1) Online Consultation (2)
Offline Consultation (3) e-Pharmacy and (4) Booking Lab & Diagnostic Tests. The market
involves multiple players who compete in one or more domains. The players are either highly
specialized in one domain e.g., MFine in online consultation, PharmEasy in e-Pharmacy or
have their presence in all domains e.g., Parcto and Lybrate. While companies like DocsApp
and 1mg compete in 2 and 3 domains, respectively. Refer Exhibit (3) for the companies’
relative strengths across the 4 domains.

Practo is a distant 1st when it comes to offline consultation with slight competition from
Lybrate alone. The companies enjoy a virtual duopoly status in the offline consultation
domain. The reason why Practo is miles ahead of Lybrate is largely because Practo started 7
years ahead of Lybrate and made the most use out of the untapped Indian healthcare segment.

In the online consultation domain, the market leaders are DocsApp and Lybrate. Both these
companies started off by offering only online consultation to the customers and have been
frontrunners ever since. MFine, an AI powered online consultation app is also gaining
traction. However, Practo in 2017 entered this segment and with their large pool of doctors
are slowing gaining market share in this domain.

The other two domains, namely, e-Pharmacy and Online Diagnostic Test Booking are
dominated by 1mg, PharmEasy and NetMeds. These 3 companies offer quick and safe
delivery of medicines and healthcare products and have a large coverage and distribution
network as compared to Practo. With Reliance buying NetMeds and PharmEasy acquiring
MedLife which had a market share of 30% in the e-Pharmacy domain, it has become even
more challenging for Practo to penetrate this space. MedLife-PharmEasy have a market share
of around 55% in the e-Pharmacy domain followed by 1mg and NetMeds with 18% and 12%
respectively.

5
With hardly any differentiation in the values and services offered between companies across
the 4 domains in the healthcare segment, the competition becomes fiercer. A larger market
reach and notable presence across multiple domains are certain areas for which companies in
these market segments compete to gain advantage. Practo, thanks to its early inception and
decent presence in all four domains, is currently the ‘Amazon’ of the healthcare industry.
Refer Exhibit (2) for competitor positioning in the market.

Practo has also been regularly acquiring competitive companies in its marketplace Exhibit(1)
These companies, although relatively smaller, are focused on providing specialization in key
segments such as dermatology, pediatrics. A few of Practo’s acquisitions are Qikwell
Technologies which offers similar e-healthcare services as Practo. Insta Health Solutions,
also acquired by Practo, provides cloud-based managements systems for hospitals, and
maintains digital medical records.

SWOT ANALYSIS

STRENGTHS:

 It is free of cost for doctors and users to create their profile on the application.
 User Friendly interface which is easy to use
 Innovative services like video consultations
 Provides a single hassle-free platform for all health-related issues like consultations,
medicines and lab tests
 Gives customer economical deals and free consultation for the first-time users

WEAKNESSES:

 Lack of awareness among people

 Most of the Indian people are not ready for technological shifts (as we can see in our
survey results) one of the key reasons being technological constrains.
 Services are only present in tier 1 and 2 cities, therefore many areas lack the presence
 Low doctor count in the country
 Privacy risks and security threats associated
 Not a good Search engine optimization and no keywords in google

6
 OPPORTUNITIES:

 To partner with government and private hospitals

 To tap into tier 3 cities and remote areas where good healthcare opportunities are not
developed
 Filtering few major requirements can provide more services
 Young generations are more internet savvy and prefer convenience

THREATS:

 Rise of competitors in the digital healthcare market

 Many technological advancements like use of Artificial Intelligence in the sector

PORTERS ANALYSIS

Threat of new entrants: It is very high as due to technological advancements and current
pandemic situation people are concerned about their health and they have moved towards
online mode of services. After the emerging opportunities and the growth in these times
many companies are looking to move in telemedicine sector replicating the existing players.

Bargaining Power of Customers: There bargaining leverage is moderate as healthcare is

basic necessity for everyone and people would be willing to pay for their wellbeing if quality
service is delivered. The reason being trust and loyalty, but the increasing number of options
in different prices have given them some power. The increasing E-health platforms and
growing private and public hospitals have given some power in their hands.

Power of Suppliers: Suppliers have low power in their hands since people can consult
doctors far away from their place which wasn't possible before and the increase in the internet
platforms providing the same services have pushed the suppliers to a weaker position in the
market.

Threat of substitutes: The threat of substitutes is high owing to the observation that
maximum people still prefer traditional healthcare services provided by hospitals and clinics
which are either referred or recommended to them by their near ones. The willingness to
move to internet-based services is also low for Indian people.

7
Competitive Rivalry: Competition is intense due to increasing players in this sector and
already established companies which are rising with the current situations. Direct competitors
include other Telemedicine platforms like 1mg, Myupchar, Netmed and Lybrate and indirect
competitors include the hospitals, clinics, chemists and lab centers.

COMPETENCIES and EXISTING OPPORTUNITIES

With Practo it is ensured that a person’s health is not compromised in the day-to-day hustle.
The key benefits that Practo provides are online strictly confidential consultations over calls,
video and chat according to a person’s convenience where health-related queries are resolved
any given time of the day. The application also stores and keep track of your medical history
and prescription saving the hassle of searching your records with doctors. The leverage and
key advantage that Practo holds in the market is being the first and the early adopter in the
Indian market. By the time the Indian market is ready for wider adoption, Practo will be the
dominant player thanks to its continued growth in the international markets and will likely
play a pivotal role in the Healthcare industry in India and other countries it operates in. Data
captured by Practo (access to over 10+ M medical records) is a huge value capture option
which is yet to be exercised. No other system in the country has the scale nor richness of data
compared to Practo and it opens a vast pool of businesses that Practo can venture into.

India is getting serious about its healthcare and people visiting doctors have increased 3.2
times a year in 2018, up from 2.7 times in 2017. Among these Gynecology, Dermatology and
Pediatrics were the top three specialties that emerged the most. The healthcare map from the
data of 13 crore Indian patients across 50+ cities and 250+ specialties is in Exhibit (6). 1 out
of 6 Indians visit their doctors more than 5 times a year and the report demonstrate the
increase in adoption of digital healthcare systems in India. The primary causes that are
driving the trend are greater awareness, Increased accessibility and Growth in lifestyle
diseases. According to WHO the number of doctors per 1000 people have increased from
0.598 in 2007 when Practo started to 0.857 in 2018. Since the pandemic hit India in March
there has been active increase in Practo’s telemedicine and Online consultancy segment.
What was considered to be a convenience to users has now become a necessity for everyone.
So, people started getting familiar with online platforms and this has supported the usage of
these applications which would now benefit Practo in the future as people have already tried
the interface and most of them have become internet savvy, they can use it in upcoming times
too. Also, ordering medicines, booking diagnostic tests and consultations from their phones

8
in the time of lockdown has created awareness about Practo which would affect its future
sales too.

As the world continues to fight the pandemic crisis, the healthcare sector has become a prime
focus for people as well as government. The Indian eHealth is projected to grow by at-least
13 times, a 16 billion opportunity by Financial year 25. There is a significant opportunity to
improve the services of healthcare all over the country and the awareness among the
consumers in present times will drive higher healthcare consumption levels. The telemedicine
market has the maximum potential in the existing times, and it proved to be an opportunity
for Practo and whatever growth was expected over the next five, six years Practo saw it in the
last one year. There is a massive shift from traditional appointments to online consultations.
During the lockdown the peak demand was 10x than normal days and it saw 175 million
unique users. There was a high increase in the doctors switching to online modes where
Practo started an academy to train all these doctors on online consultations method and the
interface of the app. During the start of the Covid-19 Practo organized series of webinars for
Indian doctors where they could interact with China doctors for the better understanding of
the disease and the preventions, they could focus on to deal with it. Thirdly, in the Covid
times Practo also built a technology where they offer real time appointment bookings with
clinics and doctors where people can start with the Practo app and book a slot according to
the schedule of a doctor. These technological advancements and software are the result of the
fund raises that Practo has done so far.

The opportunities that Practo can tap upon to be on top is to look upon are offer health
insurance plans for its users as medical treatment costs are increasing and has worried a lot of
people’s finances, so it would be safeguarding people and their families from financial
hardships and make quality health treatments accessible to many Indians. After Covid, Health
is suddenly on top priority in everybody’s agenda, the government had an increase in health
budget, therefore Practo can also partner with government hospitals under public healthcare
initiatives where hospitals can outsource to Practo and people can be provided with better
treatment and healthcare opportunities under low rates and also the data of all the patients be
stored in one database and shared and looked anytime its needed for digitalization and E-
Govt practices. According to the recent data Gynecology, Dermatology and Pediatrics were
the top emerging specialties in India, Practo can build different specializations software to
address these major branches which require longer durations for treatment and many
procedures to be followed. Another area where Practo can try its hands on is using

9
technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning to increase the capabilities and
capacities of doctors, capturing data through AI algorithms and return back insights to
doctors in no time or any things that they might be missing on like suggesting doctors what
all questions could be asked or suggesting them the medicines or tests they can prescribe. It
could save time and help doctors be more proactive and efficient. It would augment doctor’s
ability to handle more patients without compromising on the quality of their offerings.

After the growth Practo noticed in the last year and the developments it has done with the
company, the Covid pandemic provided the tipping point, now Practo has decided to expand
its offline consultations to 30 cities from top seven cities over the next few quarters. Recently
it also launched Practo Plus, which is a subscription that offers a great variety of services to
corporate individuals and to individuals. This will ensure healthcare for employees of
companies in these unprecedented times. Due to the gaps between patients from villages and
small cities and specialized doctors the company is investing more in its telemedicine product
of online consultations and are working on availability of the app in multiple Indian
languages. The idea now as said by the founder “is to remove the friction and make the
experience completely seamless.”

Additional opportunities:

 Targeted Insurance policies based upon the actual patient data

 Accurate Drug usage data to pharma companies. Can be anonymized and aggregated
to circumvent privacy issues
 Testing and pathology data combined to help patients manage their health proactively.
 Healthcare at home services
 Expansion to hospitals to further amplify the effect
 Preventive care services
 Doctors network and continuing education

OUR RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PRACTO:

With a claimed market share of about 90% in the healthcare sector largely due to their
phenomenal outreach in the offline consultation domain, there is little that Practo could do to
improve their current position. However, with a significantly untapped Indian market,
especially in the healthcare segment, the opportunities for Practo are vast. With the right

10
strategy and attitude, Practo could benefit largely from the Indian healthcare market. Our
team have the following recommendations in place for Practo to consider.

Recommendation 1: Tie up with hospitals and healthcare centers in the country to

create awareness and increase offline presence.

We noticed that 31.7% of people in India use a smartphone Exhibit (4.A & B) in 2019 and
our survey results show that people generally prefer to choose those healthcare services
which are recommended or referred to them by family and friends Exhibit (5.B), adding to
that 56.8% of the respondents have never purchased medical drugs online, it is quite evident
that most of the population has not evolved and adopted to the online healthcare services. Our
survey results Exhibit (5.D) also reveals that there are only 17% of people who are willing to
try online modes for their healthcare options, therefore, Practo should focus on offline modes
for generating revenues for the people who are not yet aware of the internet platforms or are
not technology savvy. Practo can tie up with government hospitals in the country and health
clinics in villages and remote areas to support the digital healthcare mission launched by the
Indian government. People can be provided with unique HealthID. People from remote areas
can approach the nearby health centers and register them for any specialized treatments with
the help of Practo booths by hiring a person from who is internet proficient. And Data
management of the hospitals and preserving it for the patients so there will not be a need to
carry them for your past medical history, also this data can be shared with the government.
This would create awareness about the company among different segments of people and
geographical regions also will help in storing and collection of medical records of people.

Recommendation 2: Focus on increasing market share in the online consultation

domain.

This does not come as a surprise, especially in the age of the pandemic where there was a
500% increase in online doctor consultation in India during the 1 st 3 months of the lockdown.
Subsequently, there was a drop of 67% in offline doctor consultations.

Mostly of Practo’s competition, although much smaller in size, are fully invested in the
online consultation domain. These companies offer online consultation in specific specialties
or use AI to aid doctors during online consultations. Practo however need not venture into
such offerings as it could leverage its large doctor pool to provide online consultations.

11
The WHO specified doctors to population ratio is 1:1000 and India, although improving over
the years, still lags in this ratio. The current ratio is 1:1445 doctors in India and the numbers
indicated are much worse if we take into consideration that almost 50% of allopathic doctors
practice in just five states-Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and
Karnataka.
Therefore, to cater to the places where doctor availability is scanty or inaccessible, online
consultation could be the solution- at least till the ratio numbers improves. People from the
remotest of locations could access the best doctors across the nation via online. Practo’s
Practo Plus subscription does exactly that where the patient can consult doctors across
specialization for oneself and their family unlimited number of times on a monthly, quarterly,
or annually basis. Practo has priced this subscription very competitively to attract its offline
users online. But with a lot more smaller companies offering similar solutions, Practo needs
to be pro-active to capture this market segment.

ACTION PLAN:

Based on our recommendations, our team has drafted out a board implementation plan for
Practo to focus on, to catapult the company’s growth in the coming years.

According to our 1st recommendation, Practo will have to focus on penetrating the rural
healthcare market. With only 37.1% of Indian using the internet, Practo will have to use the
facilities of the hospitals who use their data management software to increase their customer
base in rural India where the internet penetration is low. This can be done by setting up
computers with webcams in booths in rural hospitals. The local people looking for a doctor
could walk into these hospitals and consult any doctor of their choice across specializations
via Practo’s online consultation.

Practo would also have to address about the risks of purchasing drugs over the counter
without a doctor’s prescription. To do so Practo would have to preach about in their offline
clinics and hospitals. They would also have to run ad campaigns to create a general
awareness amongst the public.

Practo will send its representatives to the hospitals which are not in good conditions and
doesn’t have IT services and digital access to support their records by conversing and
persuading the authorities and the practioners to tie up with Practo to provide quality health
services to all. The database management in the hospitals will be outsourced to Practo and it

12
would be recorded and saved with Practo’s software which could be an asset for research
purposes, this can also be shared with the government as healthcare digitalization is the
necessity now and unified data will help them to identify patterns and analyze trends at
regional, national, or disease-specific levels in Indian population. It can also help the
government to develop health policy, interventions, programs for specific demographics
prepare, and respond in healthcare emergencies. The data will also be shared with healthcare
providers and pharmaceutical companies. The benefit of cloud computing data storage is that
it enables healthcare professionals and citizens or patients to access their data at any time and
place. Clinicians can be more flexible in their work as would not be confined to their office to
access patients' health records.

According to our 2nd recommendation, i.e., online expansion, Practo will have to increase
their online visibility in search engines. Presently, a search for online consultation does not
show Practo on the top, which isn’t preferred for a company as large as Practo in its industry.
The company will have to spend on online advertisements to increase their search engine
presence and attract 1st time users to book online consultations on their platform. Practo has
so far shied away from spending the big bucks in marketing with their 1st TV commercial
being aired only in 2017, 9 years after its inception. Their 1st advertisement was a radio
commercial which aired after their series D funding. Now, with the online market offering
vast opportunities courtesy India’s below par doctor ratios and with Practo having the
adequate resources to make the most of this situation, the challenge currently lies on
increasing their customer base and brand awareness. Hence, Practo would have focus on
advertisements- both online and tele to improve their positions in the online consultation
domain.

13
REFERENCES

 Practo. (2019, April 04). India is getting serious about healthcare: PRACTO
INSIGHTS. Retrieved March 15, 2021, from https://blog.practo.com/india-is-getting-
serious-about-healthcare-practo-insights/
 Tech for HEALTH: Inside the rise OF Practo and its Ambitious roadmap for the future.
(2021, February 16). Retrieved March 15, 2021, from
https://www.forbesindia.com/article/take-one-big-story-of-the-day/tech-for-health-
inside-the-rise-of-practo-and-its-ambitious-roadmap-for-the-future/66485/1
 Jan 28, 2. (n.d.). How technology is Changing health care in India. Retrieved March
15, 2021, from https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/technology-changing-
health-care-india/

 Aug, P. (n.d.). EHealth – the "New norm" Post Covid. Retrieved March 15, 2021,
from https://redseer.com/product/ehealth-the-new-norm-post-covid/
 Director, R., Follow, & Director, R. (n.d.). Is Practo worth the $650M valuation?
Retrieved March 15, 2021, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/practo-worth-650m-
valuation-rajeev-soni/
 Aug, P. (n.d.). EHealth – the "New norm" Post Covid. Retrieved March 15, 2021,
from https://redseer.com/product/ehealth-the-new-norm-post-covid/
 Physicians (per 1,000 people) - India. (n.d.). Retrieved March 15, 2021, from
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.PHYS.ZS?
contextual=aggregate&end=2018&locations=IN&start=2004
 Health and wellness in India. (n.d.). Retrieved March 15, 2021, from
https://www.euromonitor.com/health-and-wellness-in-india/report
 Practo. (n.d.). https://www.owler.com/company/practo

14
  Jadhav, R. (2020, April 02). 52% of INDIA'S allopathic doctors are practising in just
5 states. Retrieved March 15, 2021, from
https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/52-of-indias-allopathic-doctors-are-
practising-in-just-5-states/article31227994.ece
 Practo - Crunchbase company profile & funding. (n.d.). Retrieved March 15, 2021,
from https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/practo
 https://www.analysysmason.com/globalassets/x_migratedmedia/media/analysys_mas
on_e-pharmacy_quarterly_oct19.pdf

EXHIBITS

1. PRACTO’s Acquisitions

2. Competitor Positioning

15
 Multiple Services

Practo

Lybrate
1mg

Larger market Lesser market presence

presence

PharmEasy Netmeds

Uni dimensional

3. Relative Strengths

Features

Offline 5 4 0 0 0 0 0
Consultation
Online 2 1 4 0 4 5 0
Pharmacy
Online 3.5 4 3 5 0 0 3.5
Consultation
Lab Tests 3.5 3 5 3.5 4 4 0

16
 4. A. Percentage of people using a smartphone in India

17
 B. India compared to other economies

5. Survey Results conducted by us

A.
18
 B.

C.

19
 D.

20
E.

6. Doctor visits in the country

21
 INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS

Interviewee:
Bala Vignan Madanu
Sales Manager
Practo • Full-time
Nov 2014 - Mar 2017 • 2 Years 5 Months

 Handled SaaS sales to Enterprise and Large SMB Healthcare Providers.

 Consistently achieved highest new client acquisitions and highest revenue
achievement among 70+ Sales managers across India.
 Held key position in Global Sales Productivity & Sales Excellence (GSPX) team
 Responsible for driving sales productivity across all geographies and market
segments.
 Defined product positioning and go-to-market sales strategy for Practo's Enterprise
SaaS products.

 Why Parcto chose Singapore? What were the challenges faced while onboarding doctors
over there?
 How close or how distant is Practo’s closest competitors?
 Challenges faced by Practo during its initial days?
 A customer might use practo for his 1st consultation with a physician but might not use
Practo again for his 2nd consultation with the same physician. How does Practo, as an
aggregator, ensure that their revenue model stays relevant as an intermediary and not be
bypassed by the 2 involved parties?
 Any information about Practo’s funding would be helpful as my team would like to
compare it with Practo’s competitors. i.e., What percentage of the investments in the
doctor’s aggregator industry going to 1mg or NetMeds?
 What drives the growth of Practo and its competitors?
 How has Practo addressed the problem of low doctor availability in certain parts of India?

22
How were the seeds for Practo sown?

 So if you look at why Practo was founded, Shashank’s dad had a problem in leg, he
was looking for doctors, looking for options, He went through all the medical records
available in India and he couldn’t find the right doctor to solve the problem, he had to
visit quite a lot of hospitals and once he found one, it was even more difficult of find
another for a second option.
 Practo was established in 2008.
 Shashank was trying to solve the problem of digital medical records. (2017) (No
history of doctors that he could find online) and information asymmetry(mobile app)
that lies in the Indian healthcare system.
 Medical data was not governed by a centralized body. It was all localised buy each
state and seldom matched.
 How do you get all these data points?
 Built an internal platform, go to each street, go to each clinic, explain the doc about
the vision of practo, take photos, take information about the doc’s availability,
expertise. All these data were then built into the company’s app. 400 people scouting
across 7 cities till 2016. Later Gurgaon, Noida Hyderabad. By 2017.
 Pioneers in doing this research. Verified and authentic.
 Mid 2016 series C funding, expanded in the south to tier 2 cities like Vijayawada,
Coimbatore, Trichy, Kerala, Pondicherry and some of the state capitals like
Ahmedabad.
 Model of Practo: Never charged commission fee from the patients. Wanted organic
growth from the patients.
 The doctors provided Practo the revenue where Practo offered them a SAS software.
To maintain their patient data, to maintain their consultations & appointments, their
accounting systems, inventory management system (drugs) and other supplies. It was
a small-scale ERP system with all the things that a clinic required.
 Practo fundamentally started as a SAS software for health care provided on the cloud
with a mobile app or browser for the doctors.

23
How could doctors stay more connected with their patients?

 Both supply and demand dictated Practo’s success. E.g., of Uber in the pandemic.
 Was difficult to convenience doctors why needed to come online when everything
was going smoothly for them in the offline mode.
 Initial doctors were all the major doctors of all cities. So, once they joined, the others
followed suit. But it did take time.
 Practo sold itself as a healthcare technology company primarily focused on the
patient’s experience. Metros have a lot of floating population from other cities, who
do not know who the best doctor is their current city.
 In practo, you will only find doctors and you will not see ads of a restaurant or an e
commerce.
 Focused on patient experience. Sending reminders, follow-up messages, messages if
the appointment needs to be rescheduled, if the doc is running late, vaccination
calendar reminder, if there are a lot of patients in the clinic. Basically, stuffs that are
otherwise not known unless a person physically reaches the clinic. Made the
receptionist’s work simple and error free. All these messages were sent using the
name of the clinic, pleasing the doctors. Focused on what mattered to them rather that
the benefits.

Features:

 Practo reached 55% market share in terms of number doctors using their platform in
2016 in the cities where they were present.
 Practo acquired its similar competitors who were more focused on a specific segment.
E.g., Paediatrics, Oncology.
 Subscription packages ranged from monthly, quarterly, annual to 3 years and 5 years.
 Advertisement within practo was offered in 2017 where certain clinics in a few
localities were displayed on the top with a “sponsored” tag.
 The algorithm auto adjusts the clinic’s position based on the number of patients
visiting it via practo.
 Video consultation was started in 2017.

24
  Practo has a very specific and strict policy on what people can or cannot write. They
can’t mention the procedure, cost. They can only write about their experience. They
cant comment on the doctor’s capability.
 The doctors took the feedbacks positively. They said, “All these while we only knew
the positives, with parcto, now we get to know our short comings with these
constructive feedbacks”.

Practo PET Singapore:

 Practo had Singapore as an entity primarily because of the tax laws.

 Offices in Singapore was an holding entity. Primarily launched as to counter
taxations and as an investment per say.
 It was easier for global investors to fund money into a holding entity with less
stringent tax laws as compared to India.
 Business model is the same as in India. However, they don’t have clinics but a
bunch of 20-30 doctors worked together in a medical center in a shared space.
 The model was more inclined towards a hospital setup.
 Practo had profits, but Singapore was always treated as a proof of concept to go
into countries like Canada and other more established sectors. (Test Market)
 Zocdoc in US is quite like Practo. Market in the US was predominantly based on
the type of insurance that the clinic accepts unlike in India.

Information asymmetry, Patient preference to use the app, Doctors available per 1000

 How often do you shop online versus how often have you booked a doctor’s
appointment online?
 Do you prefer going to a nearby doctor’s clinic based on your acquaintance’s
recommendation or do you look for reviews of the clinic on the internet?
 Do you purchase drugs over the counter without a doctor’s prescription?

How does Practo, as an aggregator, ensure that their revenue model stays relevant?

 Don’t charge doctors per appointment bases, rather charge them per month basis
on the SaaS software.
 Practo in-fact makes more revenue if there are lesser number of patients’ data that
needs to be stored in the SaaS software.

25
  Weather the doctors gets 100 or 500 bookings via the app, Practo’s fees remains
the same.
 Never advertises that a certain doctor charge 10 or 15% lesser.
 Practo helped in improving the doctor-patient’s relationship. With a photo and
other patient details, the doctor could recollect the patient better compared to
normal cases where all the data that a doctor has of the patient are restricted to
their letter heads used to write prescriptions.
 The way the doctor community is structured, the way the revenue share model
(unofficial) works, there is a misconception that practo diverts patients the patient.
Practo never says go to this doctor or that doctor is better than this doctor, the
choice is left to the users.
 Never did a lot of marketing till their series D funding. Advertisements were done
predominantly via radio and banners placed at the doctor’s clinic to make people
aware of Practo.

PRACTO’s vs its COMPETITORS

 Practo with its online video consultations also offers pharmacies products, diagnostic
tests, results of which can be shared on the platform only. Other companies may
specialize in one specific domains of healthcare like either medicines, consultation or
tests.
 Practo is being a single platform that does everything from end to end heath journey
which solves everything, it provides entire experience whereas NetMed solves the
problem of getting medicines at your home whereas Libran offers online
consultations.

Core competency of Practo

 Practo is created on information asymmetry by collection of data of various doctors

online through web scraping and studying it and then developing such an app. Practo
even implemented the idea of Video consultations first in the market.
 As Reviews and recommendations on app are been collected for 3-4 years and will
keep getting better with time as its first in the market, Practo will always stay 6 years
ahead of all those who have started late or are yet to begin in this sector. Till then

26
 more data through review and recommendation engine will be available which can be
used to study nuances which others don’t know and make it difficult for new entrants.
 1st in the market advantage will always be with Practo and its brand image will be
there.

FUTURE GOALS OF PRACTO

 Building a software that is specific to a particular specialization like

paediatrics and gynaecology because they require long procedures.
 Also thinking to tie up with govt in public healthcare initiatives where they
can outsource it to Practo where people can be provided services and data can
also be stored at a single platform for E- govt and digitalisation initiatives as
there was an increase in Healthcare budget.
 We are thinking to offer insurance plans too like Zocdoc.

Problems Faced by Practo

 We initially targeted the top 10 cities first then top 50 reaching top 100 cities
realizing that there were hardly any good doctors in some of the cities,
therefore we realized we entered early in the market with lack of research on
different cities and the market.
 Training the doctors and convincing them to adopt and shift towards the
technological world was the most difficult task as they didn’t want to learn
and change their ways to adopt and come to this platform.
 Training sales people was also a hiccup to induce them with some knowledge
about different fields and categories of healthcare so they can interact with
doctors and understand their functions, therefore we created a Practo way of
sales to discuss all the procedures of healthcare functions and created training
modules and sessions for them so they are easily able to understand doctors
and communicate with them.

27
28