From an oil-stained, unused garage which doubled as his office, the climb to the post of President & CEO of the well known Ayurvedic firm, Himalaya Drug Company, must have been pretty steep. But no scars are seen on Ravi Prasad, the 40 year-old bearded go-getter, who is out to make the 'Himalaya' brand climb even greater heights.

"The way I got involved with this company is pretty strange - there was no vacancy for the post, they were not even looking for a person to give some kind of a concrete direction... It just so happened that I met the Chairman and told him that I was interested in working for the company - but in what position and how, we had no clue at the time of the meeting. Later he was telling me that he had read somewhere that if you see a person who fits into the organization, you had better take him in and create a post. And that was what he did. And I joined as a Training Manager," recalls Prasad.

The resistance levels from other colleagues would have been high, but Prasad just brushes that away. Most of them were in their mid-forties, having had a clean 15-odd-year stint with the company which traces its roots to 1937. And having a 29-year-old armed with an MBA degree and new ideas thrust on them, would have been unsettling. But the end result is that Himalaya is now an Indian brand to reckon with.

Himalaya, which has over 100 products all based on the Ayurvedic platform, is focused on developing safe, natural and innovative remedies that will help people lead richer, healthier lives. Today, its products have been endorsed by over 200,000 doctors around the globe, and consumers in over 40 countries rely on Himalaya for their health and personal care needs.

Seventy years ago, on a visit to Burma, Himalaya's founder M. Manal, saw restless elephants being fed with the root of the plant Rauwolfia serpentina, to soothe them. Fascinated by the plant's effect on elephants, Manal had it scientifically evaluated. After extensive research, Serpina, the world's first antihypertension drug, was launched in 1934. It was a time when draining of the blood was the only remedy for high blood pressure.

The company's best known brand - Liv.52 is still the nation's leading medicine for liver ailments.

IT in Ayurveda
Ayurveda is an ancient, holistic system for diagnosis and treatment, perhaps the oldest system of medicine known to humanity. Fundamental to Ayurveda is the use of well-balanced combinations of plants and other agents in synergistic formulas. So, how does IT fit into this scenario?

Prasad says there are three ways in which IT fits into Himalaya's business model: "One, Ayurveda is no longer considered the grandmother-tested folklore kind of thing. One needs clinical and empirical evidence if it has to be marketed in a big way, not only internationally but in India as well. You just cannot expect to build a brand based on anecdotal evidence - there has to a scientific way to get Ayurveda into the mainstream instead of relegating it to a restricted role in either the healthcare or skincare domain. And maintaining a database of all this, needs IT in a big way."

Two, the company is expanding rapidly - not only tying up joint ventures in marketing but setting up offices that are being manned by professionals from the company in various cities. So, getting them all connected through a central server is becoming imperative.

And, three, when the game plan is to build a global brand, the answer lies in real-time solutions - not only in the supply chain management but also in the customer relationship management space as well. "We have evolved our in house enterprise resource management system which was customized for us right from the beginning. For us, clinical studies and validating our processes are very important, and getting them integrated with our whole organization is a key issue," Prasad points out.

Tryst with tech
Surprisingly, it was only in '95 that the company began its tryst with IT, with the then Finance Manager Shabir Shariff beginning to develop IT solutions in the accounting domain. "That was when the multi-user computer environment came into being, and when we were looking around for a good accounting package, we realised there were none in the market that could fit our needs. No doubt some packages were there - and they were good when compared with the manual work - but for some specifications we were looking for, there were none. That was when Shabir, who doubled up as the IT chief, began designing the accounting system. Then we called a programming company and got the programme written for us. During the past seven years, there has been no hitch at all," adds Prasad.

Encouraged by this success, the company went in for IT innovation in a big way. It started looking at other areas of operations like sales, purchase, manufacturing, stock and payrolls, besides other areas of application software. Reveals Prasad: "Although different modules were independently developed, it was always on the same platform and with the same front-end tools so that we could connect to the same database. There are no multiple boxes to interlink. We started working on the Novell platform from '94 onwards and then moved on to the IBM AS400, DB2. And, the best part is, everything is under our control. We keep the software dynamic and it is made in such a way that scalability is also there."

History of innovation
This kind of an innovation seems to be the common thread running right across the company. "Our history is one of innovation through research. Our quest has always been to produce natural, safe and effective remedies, and this has been driven by several factors - an enduring belief in the power of Ayurveda, a close observation of Nature, and the systematic application of primary research methods for validation and testing," he says.

Since its inception in 1930, Himalaya has been researching Nature, which forms the foundation of its operations. Not only does it use the tools of modern science to create pharmaceutical-grade Ayurvedic products, it has pioneered research that has converted Ayurveda's herbal tradition into a complete range of proprietary formulations dedicated to healthy living and longevity. Today, these products have found acceptance with medical fraternities, and serve the health and personal care needs of consumers in over 40 countries.

For the company, the ideal healthcare system lies in the synergy between Ayurveda and modern science. And the latter, of course, includes a huge dose of homemade IT as well.