Were it not for the fact that it never raised any amount of money to fund its business, eClinicalWorks would most likely be considered a “unicorn” in the electronic health record industry, where it is now considered to be a pioneer.
CEO Girish Kumar Navani helped originally bootstrap the company by selling some stock in a company where he had previously worked. Today, he now leads an organization that has generated over $320 million in annual revenue. More importantly, eClinicalWorks doesn’t recognize partner revenue. The company anticipates 15-20% growth on both the top and bottom lines in the near future.
Girish Navani is the Chief Executive Officer of eClinicalWorks, a frontrunner in ambulant aid IT solutions. As CEO, he leads efforts to grow and expand all aspects of the business. Navani also actively manages the development and product roadmap for eClinicalWorks solutions.
Before he co-founded eClinicalWorks, Navani has led successful IT and business actions at Fidelity Investments, Teradyne and Aspen Technology. He completed his Bachelor’s degree in Engineering at Gujarat University, India. He also holds a Master’s of Science in Engineering from Boston University.
Here is where to company stands today:
While eClinicalWorks has around 4,000 employees, it has just 20 people in sales and less than 10 in marketing. However, it has more than 400 developers and around 1,000 people in customer service.
“When one cannot depend on sales and marketing to be the force to move the growth of your business forward, you rely on your customer to provide that impetus and motivation to do so,” Navani explains. “As a result, you have to become vigilant in ensuring that your product and service become better. I think it actually builds a much stronger bedrock when you don’t depend on a huge sales and marketing team to get your brand out.”
The Westborough, a Massachusetts-based company, has never obtained venture capital as Navani couldn’t stand the idea of someone else being in control, particularly if that someone else was ultimately looking to get out and sell the business.
Navani has promised that eClinicalWorks will never go public. When asked if he would ever be tempted to do an IPO closer to retirement, Navani responded that he and his co-founders intentionally put their ownership stakes into trusts so that they don’t have the legal ability to make money by selling their shares. “There is no need to be the richest man in Massachusetts,” says Navani, who still lives in the same home he lived in before started the company.
He acknowledges that the disadvantage of not having shares is that it will be more difficult to do acquisitions, but then again it is offset by having no need to acquire for the singular purpose of achieving the expansion expectations of Wall Street. As part of their benefit, eClinicalWorks has a profit-sharing arrangement with employees. “The one thing employees enjoy acquiring more than stock options is cash… then they can buy stocks elsewhere.”
Rachael is a content writer at Pearl Lemon Properties, who has written on a Ultimate Resume Guide, from colored diamonds to SEO software. In her spare time, she enjoys singing, sketching, cooking, and video games.