Wellness Industry Gets A Boost From Cloud

The Indian wellness industry is moving ahead at a significantly rapid pace over the last few years. Despite the economic stagnation prevalent over the last year, the Wellness industry has emerged unscathed, continuing on its fast growth track. This recession-proof industry’s market size is anticipated to cross US$4B by the end of 2012. These findings have emerged from the latest study by New York-based Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc.

“Some of the key growth-boosters of the wellness industry in India are - greater awareness among the public, rise in hectic lifestyles and lifestyle related diseases among people, greater disposable income among general population, growth of medical tourism and the rise of corporate houses who promote greater usage of these facilities among its employees as incentives,” said Dev Chakravarty, Manager - Research at AMI-India. “This industry is likely to grow at 25-30 percent over the next 2-3 years,” said Chakravarty. Considering different components – we find that the wellness services have a much higher growth rate than wellness products.

The utilisation of Information Technology has almost become a “must” for firms in the wellness segment – though the extent of adoption varies more or less in proportion to the firm’s size and capacity. Larger players with an all-India spread and reach, display high levels of technology usage and consider it as a key means to achieving greater business efficiency and an edge over competitors. However – the extent of technology usage is considerably less among regional firms who use IT mostly in the arena of accounts, billing and records management. Local players display minimal technology usage.

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Cloud computing is creating a major revolution among SMEs in India among almost all verticals; the Wellness Industry is certainly not an exception to this trend. Apart from large global players – a number of Indian IT majors have stormed into the SME cloud computing space with innovative and customised offerings for multiple verticals – including the Wellness Industry. This has come as a ‘boon’ for firms within the Wellness industry space who appreciate the multiple benefits associated with cloud computing – e.g. low infrastructure and CAPEX cost, scalability on demand to meet business needs, ease of application usage and the flexible ‘pay-as-you-go’ model. “Reduced IT staffing/ administration costs and less IT management/ deployment hassles in particular appeal to wellness firms most – since most of them possess an unmanaged IT set up with limited resources,” commented Chakravarty.

Some of the key areas in which cloud computing has the potential of automating a firm’s business infrastructure are – cloud-based CRM for managing customer records and relationship, Mailing and Messaging Solutions, cloud-based packages in finance/ accounting, HR, payroll, etc. Cloud-based Business Application Software like Spa Management Software and Hospital Management Software are particularly of relevance to Wellness firms since they enable complete integration of business processes across sectors. Through the adoption of Internet-based applications, real-time updation of business information is also possible and top-management can view the present situation across all departments at any time in a jiffy. Finally, the Internet can be a powerful tool to Wellness firms as it offers them great opportunities of brand building and marketing through websites, social networking, etc.