Sudhir Damodara, Co-Founder, Humidity Expert and Consultant, Origin Dehumidifiers talks about his company and its products and the path for future growth
Origin Dehumidifiers is an established company offering humidity solutions across industries, how has been your experience in the healthcare industry so far?
| Sudhir Damodara |
We are seeing a greater demand for humidity control solutions from the Healthcare Industry. We believe that the healthcare industry will continue growth at 10 per cent plus in the years to come – since there are more hospitals being setup on the low cost, high quality medicare model, such as Narayana Hrudyalaya, Vatsalya Healthcare, etc Also, the demand for quality healthcare will grow proportionally with growing per capita income of Indian population.
We are seeing greater interest from diagnostic centres even from smaller cities such as Vishakapatnam to install dehumidifiers that can prevent moisture and condensation damage from occurring inside expensive equipment like MRI, CT, cathlabs, lasik, opthalmological testing, etc.
| Benefits of de-humidifiers |
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Condensation and moisture can cause everything from damp patches on walls to ruined clothes to damage to electronic and digital equipments such as DVD players, plasma TV. A de-humidifier can stop the problem with ease. Excessive moisture tends to create water formation on the floors and walls; which makes the floors very slippery and susceptible to human fall. A de-humidifier will help reduce your homes humidity to help protect the building itself and the property inside from damage caused by dampness and mold. Using a de-humidifier will also help keep your basement air drier, which, in turn, keeps your long term storage items and family photographs, videos safer from moisture damage. Reducing moisture with a dehumidifier means reducing mold spores and house mites dramatically. Moisture in the air can be bad for the health. It can invite you to conditions like arthritis and rheumatism. On top of this, recent research has shown that high humidity causes an increase in house-mites, which increases the risk of asthma attacks. This can be overcome by having a dehumidifier. A portable de-humidifier is also used in industrial applications such as :
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How are you tapping the potential of the Indian healthcare market? Which speciality segments will generate business growth for your company?
We have already supplied to the A-segment of hospitals across India, and we are focussing our energies towards generating sales from midsize hospitals and diagnostic centres. We strongly believe in an education led approach wherein we educate customers on the ill effects of moisture. Thousands of crores worth of equipment are damaged each year due to humidity damage, although most of this damage can be easily prevented. Dehumidifiers remove excess moisture in air that is key for all forms of moisture damage.
We believe opthalmology segment – with lasik instruments will show strong growth with several chains of eye hospitals being setup all over the country. Another segment which we are optimistic about is medical imaging space.
Can you briefly tell us about your product technology and offerings? How has been the overall market response to your products?
Condensation is a physical phenomenon occurs on cool surfaces. The risks of condensation (which can occur during monsoons and if the same occurs inside a critical medical equipment – then your machine for which you may have invested crores will be idle. The easy and effective solution for this is to install dehumidifiers that can continuously sense and remove all excess moisture in these critical areas. This will reduce your replacement costs and also ensure greater uptime of critical equipment.
We have seen the quality conscious hospitals in coastal cities take the lead towards installing our dehumidifiers, but there is a need for dehumidifiers to be installed even in interior cities – since most critical areas are kept under heavy air-conditioning that leads to generation of cool surfaces that can attract moisture (and lack of a dehumidifier can cause malfunctioning in such units)
| About Origin |
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How has been the overall customer experience using your products, what are the long terms benefits to hospitals?
Customers using our products realise the gravity of moisture damage, and they have given us repeat orders – and have installed our equipments in other departments as well. The long term benefits of dehumidifiers are measured largely in performance uptime and elimination of the need for replacement of moisture damaged parts. Portable dehumidifiers are relatively inexpensive, and one can break even in a matter of months.
What challenges do you face with the healthcare industry for your business?
We find the industry potential is not being exploited due to inadequate focus on this sector. The central government spending on healthcare is abysmally low. Also, there is not much incentive for entrepreneurs to set up viable healthcare projects. A capital equipment upgradation scheme on lines of what exists for the textile industry could just start this industry
Can you share your future plan for growing your business in the healthcare sector.
Origin Dehumidifiers was the first company to get into the segment of portable dehumidifiers in 1996, and since then we have been endeavouring to educate our clients about the various forms of moisture damage – and the solutions that exist to prevent this.
Our roadmap is largely education based – and we are placing our energies towards speaking and educating the consumers about our solutions. We are already a pioneer in this space and we already are the most organised player in the market – with an indepth technical knowledge on the humidity management. The coming few months will see us take the online (web) route to create awareness about humidity.