‘Imaging and genomics must go hand in hand to meet industry demands’

The charismatic and zealous Shanker Annaswamy, President and CEO, GE Medical Systems, South Asia and Managing Director of Wipro GE Medical Systems, is a man of great vision. He has held various responsible positions beginning from GE in 1990 as projects manager. On successful launch of indigenous CT and Ultrasound systems in 1992, he became the all India business manager for the entire range of GE Medical Systems products. In 1997, he was appointed as manager-operations for Wipro GE manufacturing and was promoted as vice president - sales in 1999. Later, in 2000, he became the director and general manager of CT business for GE Medical Systems Asia based at Tokyo. Before assuming his current position in June 2002, he briefly held the role of director- quality and six sigma for GE Medical Systems Asia. An engineering graduate from the Madras University, he holds a Diploma in Business Management from All India Management Association, New Delhi. In a candid interview with Vijaya K, Shanker discloses the strategies up his sleeve sustain the numero uno position. Excerpts:

Could you give us an overview of GE Medical Systems-South Asia?

GE Medical Systems-South Asia is a US$ 300 million company comprising of three units — Wipro GE Medical Systems, GEMS X-Ray (South Asia) and GE BEL. In the last decade, GEMS South Asia has crossed many milestones by providing technology leadership in designing, developing and manufacturing. All these were made possible by the talented team of people working in our world-class facilitie located in Bangalore.

Wipro GE Medical Systems pioneered the manufacture of ultrasound and computed tomography systems. Today, we cater to the domestic as well as global requirements. Wipro GE also manufactures patient monitoring products like ECG, fetal monitor and critical care components. GE Medical Systems X-Ray designs and manufactures the complete range of X-ray systems. It is also a global supplier of digital surgical mobile C-Arms. GE BEL, a joint venture between Bharat Electronics Limited and GE, is the only manufacturer of X-Ray and CT tubes and detectors in South Asia. The John F Welch Technology Center has been a dynamic hub for engineering and research activity, where the thrust is on rapidly developing the next generation of innovative systems. Over 650 dedicated doctors, scientists and engineers are working in tandem with speciality doctors to design and develop future needs of the medical science.

How did GE Medical Systems become evolve as a market leader?

We were leaders in ultrasound in 1995 and we became leaders in diagnostic imaging in 1999. We acquired a US-based company Marquette for developing patient monitoring systems to become the cutting edge technology providers. Vascular, X-ray, Nuclear Medicine/Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and cardiovascular systems are some of the other products that fortify our position.

We forayed into the MRI market segment by installing our first MRI in Bombay Hospital and today MRI contributes significantly to our growth. Our remote diagnostic and repair technology, INSITE connects equipments like MRs, CT or Gama Cameras installed in hospitals anywhere in the region and diagnose them on a routine basis for performance enhancement and repair.

We successfully completed our first task of producing ultrasound and CT for the Indian market and then moved on to manufacturing for exports. Our dreams and efforts to design for world market materialised with LOGIQ 100 ultrasound system after which came our MRI.

We are now manufacturing surgical C-arms, CT tubes and detectors, monitoring systems etc. locally, making it viable and attractive for our customers.

How do you address the customer needs?

Providing technology alone will not bring success. Understanding customers' needs and addressing customers' technology requirement is equally important. Wipro GE provides applications support and customer training at leading centres through Training-In-Partnership (TiP) programmes. To meet the needs of local market we started local production so that we can bill our customers in India currency. We provided financial assistance to our customers by way of Healthcare Financial Services through GE Capital from 1991.

We have also set up a 24-hour call center for taking customer complaints. We train our customers and constantly upgrade them to get involved in our future product development process. In addition to selling equipment, our focus is also to enter into strategic relationship with customers by doing joint clinical projects with doctors on specific clinical areas. Hence, customers look at us as a technology service provider. We understood that our customer needs go beyond products. We have taken Quality and management solutions like Six Sigma