It’s ALL about the PEOPLE: Dr. V and Aravind Eye Care

The story of Aravind Eye care has eluded many a business leaders and has been a subject of thousands of case studies in the biggest business schools of the world. Aravind eye Care is an eye Hospital which affords world-class treatment at less than 1/10^th of their price. They are the word leaders and pioneers in certain fields of eye-surgeries.

Even after a lot of studies and research, Business Gurus and professors around the world haven’t been able to understand their business models yet. A visit to the centre makes it clear why – it is not, and never was about business. A lot of things Dr. V or his successors did made no business sense at all, but were done because they fulfilled the ultimate aim – to remove unnecessary blindness. It is surprising that even today, the same treatment is given free of cost to anyone who cannot afford it.

Dr. V was a true visionary – he started this hospital at the age of 58, with a hand crippled due to rheumatoid arthritis.

“He was old and he was crippled, he had every reason to give up”

these are words one of her fans used while describing him. But what struck me strongly was when they said that they don’t miss Dr. V after his death…that’s because they see Dr. V in every doctor, staff member, every employee of the institution.

Dr V. (inset) and the next generation of leaders at Aravind Eye Care

We visited an Vision Care Centre – a remote eye examination centre –  in a small village and got the opportunity to talk to a person working there. He was earning a mere Rs. 6,000 a month – but I could see the pride in his eyes, his words, his behaviour that I couldn’t see in the manager of an MNC who earned more than a crore a year.

At the Vision Care Centre in a remote village

And that’s when I realised – the reason for Aravind’s success is again the PEOPLE; people who understand and share DR. V’s vision: People in whom you can truly see glimpses of Dr. V.

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