Strategic Connections

8

Create New Value

Strategic Connections: Respond to Marketplace Changes

It used to be that, on a typical workday, as many as four highly specialized salespeople would arrive at a single hospital, each one calling on different customers. The salespeople all worked for a company that manufactured a variety of very specialized medical devices. Each salesperson was highly trained—but only in one product line. And each salesperson dealt only with the specialists, surgeons, or patient care professionals who used those particular products.

Then hospitals began changing their way of doing business. They announced they were moving to centralized purchasing systems. This change demanded corresponding changes for the medical device company. No longer ...