NephroPlus launched its first center at Bangalore in Koshy's Hospital in Ramamurthy Nagar. The unit has come out really nice and we feel it is one of our best units so far. We're starting with ten machines.

This is a huge step for NephroPlus as it is our first unit outside the state of Andhra Pradesh. Managing units in one state is fine but the moment you start talking about two states, things are entirely different. Yes, even though we moved out of the city of Hyderabad a few months back by launching our Mahbubnagar unit, starting a unit in a different state is a different ball game altogether. You not only have to manage a different geography, you have to also be sensitive to a different culture.

The biggest challenge in my opinion would be imbibing NephroPlus values and the NephroPlus culture into the team at Bangalore. The technicians and nurses have typically been working at different units and have their own thoughts and processes. It is imperative that they learn our ways and get assimilated into our culture. The founders being physically away from the unit is not going to make this task easy!

As NephroPlus grows, I cannot help drawing comparisons to Effigent. The difficulties are similar. In Effigent too, we started off from Hyderabad and then opened an office in Bangalore. The difference in  cultures was stark. Assimilation did not quite happen.

In NephroPlus however, we have a specific plan to address this and hopefully we will. How we are able to do this will largely dictate our plans for other states we have lined up as well.

Our team is very excited to take on this new challenge and we strongly believe we will be successful!