explanations

Slide 2:
GE Healthcare is a major division of the American conglomerate General Electric, with over $18
billion in annual revenues. In 2000, GE set up a large research and development center in Bangalore,
India with over 4500 employees, including 1600 engineers. This center was tasked with developing
affordable medical products specifically for emerging markets like India, Asia, Africa and Latin
America.

One division that took on this challenge was the Maternal Infant Care or MIC division. Their focus
was on developing a low-cost infant warmer or radiant warmer to address the issue of hypothermia in
newborns, especially in rural and semi-urban areas of India lacking access to proper healthcare
facilities.

Slide 3:
India has very high rates of neonatal mortality, which refers to babies dying within the first 28 days of
birth. In 2012, India topped the world with around 800,000 neonatal deaths. The rates are 50% higher
in rural areas compared to urban areas.

The key reasons included lack of trained medical staff like doctors and nurses, poor infrastructure in
public health facilities, lack of essential medical equipment like warmers and incubators, and many
childbirths happening at home without proper care.

Slide 4:
There was a stark divide in the Indian healthcare market. In major cities, the rising middle class had
access to sophisticated private hospitals and birthing centers that offered high-quality care comparable
to western countries.

However, in semi-urban areas and villages, most people relied on the struggling public health system
or local clinics and nursing homes that often lacked qualified staff and equipment. This large
underserved population in low-resource settings represented an untapped opportunity for GE.

Slide 5:
Prior to 2013, GE's MIC division offered premium incubators like the Giraffe model costing $15,000
to $25,000 targeted at major hospitals in cities.

For more budget-conscious customers, they had the Lullaby Warmer priced around $3,000 to $4,000.
They also distributed the low-cost Embrace Warmer developed by a startup.
However, GE realized that to reach the low-resource rural markets, they needed an innovative product
disrupting the existing price-performance paradigms.

Slide 6:
This led to the development of the Lullaby Warmer Prime or LWP in 2013. It was a radically
affordable warmer priced between $800 to $1500. While low-cost, it was designed for ease of use,
low electricity consumption and came bundled with extended warranties.

The target customers were small private clinics, NGO & charitable hospitals, public health centers
and rural government hospitals serving the underserved populations.

Slide 7:
Just having an affordable product was not enough. GE had to innovate its entire business model and
go-to-market strategy for these low-resource settings:

- Expanded distributor network and provided local inventory closer to customers

- Experimented with online sales via website and healthcare portals
- Evaluated third-party salesforce and tele-calling for deeper reach
- Launched education & awareness campaigns via special vehicle tours to villages

Slide 8:
For the public health sector, GE piloted partnerships with state governments like Bihar and Odisha
which had very high infant mortality rates. The goal was to collaboratively reduce these rates by
improving access to quality care.

GE also partnered with non-profits, aid agencies and participated in the 'Mission Healthier India'
initiative to take its low-cost innovations directly to rural areas using mobile vehicle clinics.

Slide 9:
The key lesson for GE was that making products affordable is just the starting point for low-resource
markets. More importantly, innovative business models and go-to-market strategies were required.

GE adopted a 'commercial prototyping' approach to test new ideas like non-traditional sales channels,
different partnerships, financing options and more. However, they realized it was just the beginning of
a long journey.
Slide 10:
Going forward, GE needs to double down on scaling up public-private partnerships and collaborating
with all stakeholders - governments, NGOs, hospitals, communities to build a supporting healthcare
ecosystem.

Investments in awareness programs, training medical staff and developing distribution/service

capabilities will be critical, in addition to the technical product innovations.

GE can then leverage these learnings and a deep understanding of low-resource markets to seed future
affordable innovations across its portfolio.