You’ve got to have a vision

‘You’ve got to have a vision’

In bringing the Caremark brand to Harrow, Varsha and Girish Khubchandani channelled their sales and finance skills into a fulfilling new venture

To begin with, it was favourable word of mouth that brought Caremark to the Khubchandanis’ notice.

In 2008, chartered accountant Girish and his wife Varsha, a medical sales executive, were growing disgruntled with their jobs. Wouldn’t it be better, they thought, if they could run a business together?

Varsha’s cousin Suresh had recently acquired a franchise in Leicester. So had his friend Farina in Leeds, and “she loved it, absolutely loved it”, says Varsha. “So, she sold the idea to me.”

Varsha’s only real experience of care had been looking after her mother-inlaw. However, as a sales rep for a wellknown pharmaceutical company, she had some knowledge of the medical field.

“I liked the idea of providing care. I thought it was a nice way to earn a living, because you’re recruiting people, giving them jobs, you’re helping people and you’re running a business,” she says.

A meeting with Caremark CEO Kevin Lewis and his then right-hand man was “absolutely brilliant”, she adds. “It made me think, ‘If I don’t know anything, I’ll learn it.’

“I said to Girish, ‘Let’s go to the presentation. Let’s look at it from a business point of view. Is it viable? Is it something that we could do?’ And then when the figures were presented to us, Girish said ‘Let’s go for it.’”

Following Caremark’s methods to the letter meant that within a year or two, the business was doing nicely. “It was challenging, but at the same time it was good because we were busy. We never looked back,” says Varsha.

Her original idea was to carry on in the medicines business and hire a manager to run the franchise. But while the couple were applying for a care licence, she decided to take charge of the operations herself.

“When I was a rep, if I had a manager who had never sold a drug or sat in front of a doctor, I didn’t have a lot of respect for them,” she explains.

“I didn’t want my carers thinking, ‘You’ve never done this, you don’t know what it’s like.’ So, then I learned everyone’s job. Even to this day, no one can tell me what to do, because I know how to do it.

“I care. I’ve done field care supervising. I’ve written assessments. I’ve done coordinating. I did everything. I got to know as much as I possibly could by being hands on.

“Then slowly, when we started hiring people, it got easier and easier, because you could give some of the responsibility away. So now, it’s easy. I’ve got a whole team of people to do everything.”

Describing the industry as “great”, her husband adds: “We’re helping people, whether they are elderly or young adults who need support, and it’s very satisfying to improve their quality of life.”

The business works, says Varsha, because Girish is solid with numbers while she understands the value of discipline and planning from her pharma days.

“It was drummed into us: ‘Fail to plan, plan to fail’… ‘You’re only as good as the people you employ.’ So, I was always target-orientated.

“It’s how you run the operations as well,” she adds. “If somebody turns up late, they’ve had it from me. Five minutes late is not an option.

“You’ve got to be that type of person, you’ve got to have that sort of vision. You’ve got to know what you want from your business and what kind of reputation you want from the outset.”