You are first generation pharmaceutical entrepreneur. You started your company after finishing B.Pharm. How would you like to unfold your journey?
Setu Doshi: My journey started from college itself from the 2nd year. Me and my friends used to plan about vision for the business & how to do business? I had a vision that I would always do business so after college I joined pharma marketing in Elder Pharma. Just so that I could understand the business of Pharmaceuticals. I was doing marketing of well-established brand. Since the brand was well established, we couldn’t learn much about the market. Hence we thought of joining a small organization where we can learn ground level of marketing. We joined a small organization in Ahmedabad for 6 months. Then we took the risk of starting our own company named ‘Cure World Healthcare”.
Can you brief us about your organization?
Setu Doshi: Our main service is marketing of pharmaceutical products. We are involved in marketing of our brand & franchise brand of products. Our second service to help small scale entrepreneurs, who want to market their products but does not have scale to market big batch sizes. We will provide full-fledged service to them starting from product design to manufacturing of batches.
Why you selected marketing field for your business ?
Setu Doshi: Every businessman should know marketing; every owner should know sales. I believe that business runs on marketing. You will find higher profit margin in marketing of the product rather than manufacturing of products.
What challenges did you face in initial years of your business? How did you overcome that challenges?
Setu Doshi: We were quite sure of vision for our company. We were already ready prepared with challenges which we could face during our initial years of business. We brain stormed the challenges & what could be their solutions in well advance before starting the company. We prepared one paper with details of challenges & solutions to that challenges. We kept that paper with us.
How is marketing different in pharmaceutical field than any other field like FMCG ?
Setu Doshi: Marketing in other retail field like FMCG is directly driven by customer so you have to more focus in direct interaction with customer & increase your visibility in front of customer by doing activities like advertising. While pharmaceutical marketing is more driven by interaction with doctors.
Your marketing product portfolio contains all the dosage form like Solid Oral, Injectable, Syrup & Nutraceuticals as well. Do you have to adopt different marketing strategy as per dosage form ?
Setu Doshi: No, it does not differ in marketing strategy. Main reason to keep different dosage form is to provide wide range of product portfolio. It also makes difference in valuation in eye of person when you go with large buckets of products than smaller bucket.
In wake of current covid-19 pandemic, there is lot of emphasis on digitization. How do you think digitization is changing pharmaceutical marketing ?
Setu Doshi: Pharmaceutical marketing runs on certain systems & in traditional ways. In Initial days of covid, digital ways of pharmaceutical marketing were successful but slowly slowly it started tapering away. In my opinion, complete digitalization of pharmaceutical marketing is not possible. It can be hybrid system which involves majorly traditional marketing along with small portion of digital marketing.
Do you have any plant to foray in to Manufacturing ?
Setu Doshi: As of now, No. Currently, we would like to go dipper in marketing rather than widening our business with manufacturing. Once we are established in marketing than we can think about entering in to manufacturing.
What will be your advice to young entrepreneur who wants start their journey in field of marketing? What to do & what not do?
Setu Doshi: I would advise to start with job first before you become entrepreneur. If a person gets a chance, then try to start with big organization. Learn systems, behavioural science, working style, discipline & planning in that organization. A person should try hand at smaller organization as well because you will learn reality of the market more closely at the smaller organization then at a large organization. Apply these learnings in to your business once you start it. Try to learn & leave with challenges. Try to give your best in first 3 years of entrepreneurship. It is my person opinion that person who successfully completes first 3 years in business that person is having higher chances of success in life.
What not to do ?
Do not start company without vision, do not afraid of challenges. Have patience as all the business requires some time to grow. Try to find out ways/solutions of problems. Get habit of listening “No” as well.
