Journey of Nita Borkar, Executive Director; who changed the dynamics of business and made it big in the pharmaceutical Industry
Nita Borkar is a woman who always dreamt of becoming a successful entrepreneur within a few days of her joining the pharmaceutical industry as a management trainee in the year 1997 in Nicholas Piramal.
She was very passionate about learning different aspects of the pharmaceutical industry with the ability to learn things very quickly.
She was excellent in her communication skills which helped her move up the ladder in the product management team. Nita is a good listener and understands the situation with clarity because of her excellent listening skills.
She uses all these skills to support her decision-making. This helped Nita in her journey benefiting the organizations with rapid growth, and she is exactly doing the same work at Oaknet Healthcare, a young emerging organization where she is currently driving 1000 plus employees as an executive director.
Nita took one of the best decisions of her life when she proposed the board of OaknetLifesciences the company she started along with her mentor R.S. Raghav in November 2016 along with a few other colleagues to go for the acquisition of the Indian business of African giant Adcock Ingram and the management gave her go ahead.
With her exceptional negotiation skills, she bought the entire domestic market of Adcock to the kitty of Oaknet Lifesciences which was a start-up in the Pharma market with a turnover of Rs.5 crores in just one year of its inception from Zero.
This was possible with her excellent marketing skills, and her vision to scale up the business to the next level with a big turn to generate big profits.
She convinced a leading private equity firm to invest in Oaknet Lifesciences to buy the business of Adcock Ingram which resulted in the formation of Oaknet Healthcare, and her big dream came to realization.
After the successful acquisition of Adcock Ingram, the real challenge emerged in front of her as it was a sinking business. She had to save the earning and lives of 1000 plus employees of Adcock and their families.
She becomes emotional when she says "I saved 1000 plus employees and their families but could not save my mother".
But she realized that life and death are beyond the control of human beings and are controlled by God. She is very much inclined toward reading books. She loves to read the Bhagwatgita and implements its learning in the day to day life.
She recollects the famous saying from the Bhagawatgita, "Parivartan Sansar ka Niyam Hai", which translates to, "Change is the Law of Nature". "Change is inevitable and it better you change to the changed circumstances". So, she developed a line for herself which is her motto in life,
She brought in a lot of change in her professional approach to sharpen her decision-making abilities which have helped her in previous assignments at different levels of management and are currently helping her at Oaknet Healthcare.
Coming back to her childhood she was well groomed by her parents and her mother has always taught her that there is no shortcut to success and only determination and hard work can bring success in life.
Gave an example of her when she was a management trainee in Piramal, her business head gave her the assignment to work on a presentation on Antibiotics.
She was not a student with a Pharmacy background but despite that, she prepared an excellent presentation which the SBU head shared with the entire team so that the others can prepare their presentation in similar lines.
This speaks volumes about her marketing skills, the ability to learn new subjects quickly and come out with good innovative ideas to propel the growth of the business.
These skills were there with Nita right from the beginning. Nita completed her High School in Mumbai and graduated in Microbiology from Mumbai University. With a zest to pursue a career in marketing, she completed her MBA in Marketing.
Nita is fortunate &had the opportunity to work with bosses who have been demanding and brought out the best in her. In 2000, Nita came across a job notification in Lupin Pharma which was entering chronic therapy in India. This job seemed like an interesting change to her and took up an opportunity in Lupin.
Over the next couple of years, she worked closely with Megha Dhargalkar, a renowned name in the pharma industry, and chalked out the launch plan of the Cardio-Diabeticdivision in India, shaping the company's future expansion and growth strategies.
Nita played a pivotal part in boiling down the molecules, brands, and execution strategies. In 2003, Nita went a step ahead and moved to Dabur India as Marketing Manager, APAC. The International market offered a huge scope for growth and learning.
Nita strategically launched and positioned Dabur Oncology as the No.1 generic company in Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysia. Dabur Oncology was positioned as a company that offered cancer therapy at affordable prices and engaged patients for the long term with unique patient welfare programs.
Nitaserved as a part of the core team that coordinated registrations and key audits for launch in markets such as Turkey and Indonesia. She wanted to learn diversified markets and segments which would help her run an organization independently in the future. She re-joined Lupin under the mentorship of R.S. Raghav.
She took up the role as she was aware that neuropsychiatry is an emerging market in India. Nita had scripted the business plan that delivered and landed Lupin amongst the top 10 CNS companies in India in the first 6 years of launches.
Nita had been instrumental in the expansion of the Cardio Diabetic business of Lupin and the business flourished exponentially under her. The toughest decision in her life came when along with Raghav and a few other colleagues, she had to start Oaknet Lifesciences.
She took the bold decision of quitting a job paying a lucrative salary and luxurious well-settled life but she chose her idea and path.
She was crystal clear in her mind that this is the moment and this is going to be a game-changer decision in her life. With her dedication, perseverance, determination, and hard work she emerged as a successful leader, making Oaknet Healthcare a force to reckon with in IPM.
She is one of the most successful Indian Entrepreneurs with a big vision and a great heart. She says that the conducive environment created by her parents at her home to support and empower women helped her to chase her dreams and become successful.
She admits that the change that has happened in India and still happening in society to provide a conducive environment to empower women in India has helped her to achieve her dreams.
With the changed attitude of the male dominant society and culture, she has reached a height where she not only inspires women but also men in India who want to become like her, following her footsteps.
To perceive more about the company and her professional journey, The CEO Magazine sat with the leading lady and asked a few questions.
Oaknet strives towards ushering in a new era where the best medical treatments will be affordable not just to the classes, but also to the masses.
We understand well that our nation is dealing with developed or high-quality healthcare services, and strategies need development at a swift pace for the units produced for raw materials that go hand in hand with the government policies keeping the small-scale industries in mind.
To gain decent quality workers with expertise and innovative ideas, the researchers will have to find out areas that go beyond the barriers of metro cities where an abundance of researchers and quality professionals are available. We entered the market to address this scarcity.
The foundation of Oaknet Healthcare was taken in 2015 by R SRaghav. The vision of Oaknet's operations is to develop a Sustainable, Scalable, and Specialty focused pharmaceutical company.
With the acquisition of Adcock Ingram, Oaknet Healthcare became one of the fastest Indian Companies to reach the Top 100 Companies in the IPM. Oaknet has also acquired brands from leading multinational companies like Sandoz and GSK to enrich the product portfolio.
Oaknet with tremendous leadership expertise in the IPMis poised to create history by scaling up revenues to INR 10 billion over the next 5 years through organic and inorganic growth.
Oaknet is engaged in special therapeutic segments as diverse as Dermatology, Cosmetology, Cardiovascular, Diabetic, Orthopaedics, Gynaecology, etc.
Our team of multi-talented and highly experienced professionals dedicates themselves to enabling India's medical fraternity to focus on the key products and unique combinations in NCDs, collaborate with credible universities in cardiology & diabetes, and launch unique technology-driven solutions for patient welfare.
All these efforts come from the passion to serve humanity, like the Oak tree that shelters everyone, without discrimination.
New brands, new markets, and new therapy areas, with an ability to take risks and build brands to increase the market share in the IPM has been an interesting journey for me.
In 2015, I decided to channel my work to create and deliver value to establish a new identity in the Indian Pharmaceutical Market and started my entrepreneurial journey. A few key personnel joined hands and unfolded our launch, Oaknet Lifesciences.
OaknetHealthcare's inception took place in 2015 as Oaknet Lifesciences to scale into the top 50 companies through organic and inorganic growth within 5 years of launch.
Oaknet soon collaborated with a leading private equity firm and successfully acquired the Indian footprint of a leading dermatology company, Adcock Ingram which has propelled Oaknet to an impressive 87th position with over 1200 employees spread across the country.
Rechristened the company name to Oaknet Healthcare with four areas of interest in domestic(Dermatology, Cosmecare, Cardio-Diabetic, Women's Health, and Pain Management)and the International market. In a short span of 25 months, there was a turnaround from a loss-making entity to a profitable business.
I had laid down the strategic vision for Oaknet of building a Sustainable, Scalable, and Specialitydriven pharmaceutical company and was confident of delivering it with the core values like Performance Orientation, Innovation, Openness, and Committed to learning and Integrity.
Oaknet Healthcare offers a huge basket of products in the fields of Dermatology, Diabetology, Cardiology, and Woman Health offering superior care to the patients
Oaknet Healthcare started in 2015 and within a year of its launch, it had reached the top 100 companies of IPM. Oaknet with the support of top-notch private equity partners has now acquired many MNC brands strengthening its portfolio year after year.
Today, Oaknetstands strong at the position of offering a portfolio of products covering all the major therapy segments in the IPM.
All the stakeholders involved with Oaknet are our customers starting with the employees, investors, customers in the market, and the end consumers of our products.
With our state-of-art manufacturing and best practices, we ensure that we deliver value.
I look at our business through a customer's lens and then I come back and talk to my people about what I saw was good, and what was not good. This way I make sure my customers are all content with our offerings.
I give full credit to my beautiful family members for how I was able to balance work and life.
I am married to Prasad, a Banker by profession who has always been supportive and thought that women should have a chance at everything. We have a lovely daughter, Nitika, and siblings who have been supportive and have always encouraged me to try new things every day.
Not, times are changing, and as a country; we are progressing and becoming open to seeing women in leadership positions. The environment today has become conducive to women's empowerment and women have to come forward to set examples for others.
My family environment and society are very much conducive to women's empowerment. I also very strongly believe in empowering women and should reach the top position with sheer determination, hard work, & perseverance.
The times have changed and things are getting better for women now. As an individual, I have never faced any discrimination or gender bias in my career
. I believe that it all depends on the individual's belief to transcend their own best. Competency and Commitment are the two things that will take us places no matter which gender we are.
The day begins with a lot of thinking and planning to ensure that we create and deliver value to the business and employees. A lot of thought goes into bringing cost-efficiency into the system with resource optimization.
As a businessperson, building a stronger business model with a solid EBITA is very crucial, that is where I invest a lot of my time, and monitoring, mentoring, executing, strategizing, and aligning the team towards the organization's goal is an ongoing process at any given time of the day
Entrepreneurship requires a lot of patience to handle failure, and meticulous planning to ensure that the bus into be entity does not run into a financial crisis.
Every step has to be financially safe and executed accordingly. It is also important to build a solid reputation for the organization that will help us attract talent through growth story and culture
My agenda for the years to come is very clear. I will strive to bring Oaknet into the top 50 companies in the IPM. Top 15 companies in the derma segment, top 30 companies in the Gynae market. In terms of brands, we will build at least 10 brands above 10 Cr, 4 brands above 20 Cr, and one 50 Cr brand.
If today, I have managed to inspire the women who seek entrepreneurship or already are on the path, it is because of what I have learned from my mother and what I carry with me as my core learning and values.
My Mother's unconditional support and contribution to my successful life have led me in the right direction.
Mom always told me, "There is no shortcut to success, only determination and hard work will lead you to success." She is the guiding force of my life and kept me grounded.
The secret to success is not rocket science. It is only hard work and there is no shortcut to success. A person should be a quick learner in today's environment & competitive world.
She should have passion & a strong desire to do something unique and have a specific goal and channel all her energy to achieve that goal in life and be successful.