In an exclusive conversation with NewsX for its special segment NewsX A-list, Ali Merchant, Founder and CEO of AM Infoweb Ali Merchant, joins us. Merchant specializes in Health Information Management Outsourcing and shares with us his valuable insights.
Merchant founded AM Infoweb in 2008 as a health information management outsourcing organization with a primary focus in North America, especially in the US. sharing his vision and brand Merchant said “I feel that money can motivate people, but what can inspire people is the purpose. Our purpose is trying to help people and make a difference. Our customers are insurance companies, hospitals, and law firms and we play our part in making these three services extremely affordable.”
Talking about how pandemic affects the outsourcing industry, “I think it is not with our existing customers because they have already embarked on the journey of automation and outsourcing. People who are still resisting or procrastinating on outsourcing, and I know it’s a tough decision. One of the major factors that people think of outsourcing is how we can take away jobs from our people. That is not very good logic. I feel that as long as you are able to invest and reinvest in upskilling and rescaling your people you would not have to let them go.”
Sharing his advice on what makes a good business Merchant elaborates “It’s the people that make the business best. We have been blessed with an amazing team, especially our leadership team. One has to be right by clients and the people and just not talk about it. A lot of leaders talk about this but what I have experienced is a lack of action. Speaking of action means having a culture in the organization that reinforces or is aligned with your thoughts of putting people first. So, I would say, people first and then have a culture to support that.”
As a piece of advice to entrepreneurs, especially during the ongoing crisis right now, Merchant suggested “As long as one have embarked on the journey of doing business or starting a business for the right reason, however tough the times are, in my experience, you will survive that out. My understanding is that most of the people that embark on the journey of entrepreneurship, all businesses for the wrong reasons because of the glamorous picture the society has built around entrepreneurship and business. I wanted to get into this business of outsourcing in 2003 because it seemed where I could help people and work in the future.”
“When I got introduced to outsourcing I thought this is a great domain to be cross country where one gets to talk to a lot of people, most importantly, you get to work in the future,” added Merchant. Talking about the engine ahead for his brand, Merchant added “Our vision is pretty clear. For now, we are helping make legal insurance and health care services, cheap in the US and making it affordable for the common man. Our goal is to do that worldwide so justice for an individual which means either service, insurance, security and medical services is affordable to everyone.”
On a concluding note, Merchant elaborated a very unique yet universal symbol of leadership, “I came up with that concept for my own reference, as we know the triangle is the universal symbol of leadership. So my theory is as long as you state these three things: A for attitude, C for competence, E for ethics, as long as you paste these three things one will be a leader in any domain. I would check these three things if my attitude is right and am I looking at situations they should be. Do I have a perception of reality and competence? Today’s world is evolving so fast that one needs to keep making yourselves. Basically, I need to be hungry for more knowledge and thought, most importantly, ethics.”
Merchant stresses the need for ethics in business and says, “If you want to be really successful and sustain that success, one has to be ethical and as long as these three things are in line. I do not need to really work on myself. I just need to stay put, be resilient and the force will become positive, eventually.”