Management Accounting Case Book

General Lab

Oriol AmatUniversitat Pompeu Fabra

Martí GuaschUniversitat Pompeu Fabra

INTRODUCTION

General Lab is a corporation created in 1991 that is dedicated to conducting clinical analysis and managing clinical laboratories. Since 2005, it has been the leading laboratory group in Spain and has been profitable since its beginning. The company’s headquarters is in Barcelona.

The idea to create General Lab arose from the desire to launch a large private laboratory using the latest techniques in business management. The mission was to become the leading clinical laboratory company in Catalonia, Spain, in two years and eventually become a leader in Europe. To do so, the company needed to provide the best service to the prescribing physician and the patient at a controlled and efficient cost. It was a matter of modernizing the clinical laboratory industry, or clinical analysis as a business, from the standpoints of production, quality, and efficiency, as well as that of a service firm.

Josep Ignasi Hornos Vila, clinical analysis specialist and PDD of IESE, and Jesús Mª Martínez Larrañaga, industrial engineer and PADE of IESE, developed a business plan that included three stages of activity: (1) treat 1,000, (2) 2,000, and (3) then 4,000 patients daily. The initial break-even point for the company stood at an annual net revenue of €4.2 million. Vila, future general manager of General Lab, contacted Carles Sumarroca Coixet, future president of General Lab, to obtain financial partners. ...