China and Africa in good health for ERPs

PUNE, INDIA: Inflow of funds from international shores to AIDS-challenged Africa make it lucrative for products that can enable hospitals with IT. China, on the other hand, is being perceived by some as a market that still follows India's heels when it comes to healthcare IT. So, both the East and West directions pose an opportunity for companies like Designtech.

DesignTech Systems Limited, a healthcare solution provider, has in fact just bagged an international contract for its ERP installation in one of the largest private hospitals in Kenya's capital Nairobi. This is DesignTech's first international project which is to be installed in May and the company will aggressively pursue opportunities in North African belt. It expects a volume business of about four to five lakh dollars this year.

The current order is from Coptic Hospital, a 250-bed specialty hospital in Nairobi, to install the ERP solution developed by the company's healthcare team. The ERP will also be installed at the two small clinical units run by the group.

Abhijit Sane, business development manager, Healthcare domain, tells that the company has tied up with a local partner in both the regions. “A lot of computing and IT requirements are coming up in Africa, and much of the development is due to the western inflow of funds. Modernization of facilities is the current wave driving IT adoption in hospitals etc here, typically in the east African parts.”

However, China's attractiveness comes with a range of roadblocks.

The market is typically piracy-oriented and very skewed on the cost factors, despite the fact that it can be harnessed for opportunities as it lags India in this space. “We hence, are playing cautious and not taking any chances. We have partnered with an Indian entity to take care of that.

Next on cards would be Middle East, which as of now is at a nascent stage.

Asclepius, the ERP developed by DesignTech is a hospital management system that works for growing clinics and medicals hospitals and covers areas like patient management, administration, billing, surgical equipments, equipment interface, configuration and execution of work flows, lab management, patient's registration, blood bank details and billing procedure, with these processes integrated in the 42-module software.