Interview with Pradeep Iyer National Head of C-Square

No matter how many units of a product a firm manufactures, if the units aren’t distributed and accounted for properly, the company is bound to face losses. Taking care of the supply chain and inventory is, therefore, crucial to any business. The medical and pharmacy industry particularly struggles with the above problems as it produces highly specialized products that need to be monitored and transported with special care. 

Even today, most Indian pharmaceutical manufacturers rely on archaic paper-based systems, use cash for transactions, and have no real mechanism for tracking their stocks. But thanks to technology, tracking, updating, and managing their supply chain is no more a hassle. 

CSquare is one such highly-specialized software provider that assists pharmaceutical providers with inventory management, billing, tracking, and movement of their stocks. It offers a range of customizable solutions to help pharmacies with distribution, monitoring, and transactions. 

In Conversation with Mr. Pradeep Iyer National Head of C-Square

We are glad to have interviewed Mr. Pradeep Iyer, the founder of CSquared Info Solutions Ltd., and know about his and his company’s journey so far.

Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

Firstly, a warm welcome from SoftwareSuggest Mr. Iyer; our readers are eager to know about your & CSquare’s journey so far. So tell us, how did it all start?

Like any other happy coincidence, it started a few years back when C-square became a part of Reliance group, it was technologically advanced & had business expertise in the Pharma supply chain industry and we never had to look any further after that.

What was the one realization or learning during your journey that helped you grow in this field?

Tough times don’t last, but tough people do, This mantra has always given me confidence and encouraged me to keep going in any adverse situations, and the bottom line is ”Customer is the KING” and in today’s digital world ”Delight” plays a major role.

What prompted you to choose the PharmaSupply industry and how has it evolved in the past few years?

Pharma supply chain industry is changing its stance by becoming more technologically advanced, enhancing businesses for each stakeholder on each level, from manufacturing industries to the pharmacy near your house, it is bringing the medicines to the remotest rural places, making it available for people living in extreme places providing immediate help,  it is making our country more self-reliant & working towards the mission of ”Make in India”.

Like one of our products ”Store Track”, this tool completely digitizes a supplier’s warehouse or store management. Earlier, for a distributor it used to take around 1 hour to 1.5 hours to make an invoice which included picking and packing each item manually, checking the required batch, expiry, quantity, discounts and calculate the price, etc and finally managing to make the final bill but with Store-track the complete process takes less than half an hour with zero errors.

Slowly but steadily many such innovations are coming up and will keep coming in the Pharma industry, making it one of the most efficient and growing industries.

What are your projections for 2021 when it comes to the Pharma Industry amidst the COVID-19 situation?

Only one goal – Digitise every retailer in the country and bring them closer to the supplier digitally to ensure availability of medicines at any given point of time.

How has your sales & marketing strategy evolved during the shift from normal to new-normal?

The new-normal was work from home and C-Square – sales, support, and development teams were all geared up to serve the nation, pharmacies, distributors, and other stakeholders with rigor and passion.

The C-Square team uses all necessary digital tools to assist customers for a demo, support, implementation, etc., and made customers do his/her business without any hassles.

The most important aspect of this pandemic was to keep internal and external customers happy. The marketing team of c-square ensured various digital activities through different mediums and ensured that everyone is motivated, supported, cared for, and assisted.

What is your success mantra? Something you have followed personally that has helped you in your journey

There is nothing called good and bad, but everything needs to be right in both personal & professional lives.

I have always believed in 3 aspects which are: common sense, speed, and passion.

What is your vision and plan for taking CSquare to greater heights in the next 5 years?

Vision and plan for the next 5 years are to digitize the complete ecosystem of Pharma supply chain, connect each and every stakeholder with each other and make medicines available in each and every corner of our nation through C-Square.

What separates CSquare from its competition?

C-Square started its journey with the sole mission to serve and provide solutions for the efficiency of the pharma supply chain industry. The focus has always been Pharma, and the goal is to take an un-organized industry and the people running businesses in this industry to a path of having complete control over their enterprise, proper day to day running of the business, effective management, and growth of their business.

What was the idea or impetus behind creating PharmAssist?

Distribution business in India has always been very cumbersome and daily business is conducted on pen & paper, inventory check is done manually, orders are placed through phone or through paying a visit by the salesman, no-maintenance of proper accounts, leading to mismatched inventory, expired stocks, inaccurate cash flow, and many such troubles, 

The idea was to remove these problems and create software that helps their distribution business to run effortlessly, manages inventory, helps distributors with all-important reports to understand their position & plan accordingly. and we are proud to say that all distributors associated with us have seen tremendous growth after joining hands with us. PharmAssist has indeed changed the lives of many distributors by giving a complete process management ERP solution to them.

How you think are Indian buyers adapting to the e-commerce way of purchasing medicines?

There is a huge supply chain cost in the current e-commerce model, and most patients go to these platforms to buy only chronic medicines due to heavy discounts and still depend on Mom & pop pharmacies for any acute ailments.

Neighborhood pharmacies are the lifeline of any patient and we at c-square believe that providing tools to these neighborhood pharmacies would bring more viability to the e-commerce business.

Neighborhood pharmacies are lifeline of any patient and we at c-square believe that providing tools to these neighbourhood pharmacies would bring more viability in the e-commerce business.