Understanding Your Customer's needs is the Mother of Re-Invention. Concerned? You should be Post COVID-19.
RE-INVENTING YOURSELF IN A PANDEMIC
One of my favourite autobiographies is by Sir Alan Sugar, 'What You See is what you get'. Why? First of all, it’s humorous, and a great example that when common sense is partnered with conviction, great things can happen. Fundamentally, understanding how a business works, gives the practitioner the skills to break down an organisation, remove the techno speak and acronyms from the problem. Sir Alan Sugar's first love in business is electronics, and mine is medical stuff and science, which for me became Medical Devices. As you would expect, Medical Device organisations are full of techno speak, being such a methodological environment Medicine lends itself to acronyms of acronyms, of yet more acronyms.
From sales, to senior leadership, it has been an interesting ride; and I am privileged to have been involved in some breakthrough technologies along the way. Being part of the team that launched in Europe, the AVE (Arterial Vascular Engineering, California), Pre-mounted Coronary stent, that took 60% market share from Johnson & Johnson Palma Schatz in 18 months, or selling the Terumo Glidewire against Benstons, Newtons and Whorley guidewires. The way business is done has changed, in Medical Devices more than ever. The COVID-19 pandemic has asked many questions of the commercial world; Medical Devices and pharma is the sector that had to respond in this crisis, with greater clarity than any other segment, this is our world; health is our game.
Social distancing, furlough are terms we had not considered a year ago, but it is very much part of our present and future. Also, in Medical Devices with the sales force returning from furlough, shedding operational cost is a natural result of the change and response to this health crisis. However, are we just panicking or is this strategy? Going forward, will sales personnel be visiting in the flesh or making sales calls via Zoom or Microsoft Teams? On a recent webinar titled ‘Reopening Elective Surgery in the NHS’, Professor Robert Middleton, reflected on the fact that 3 months ago he was able to see three industry reps per month, but on the day of the Webinar, where he was a panellist, he was meeting with three industry reps on the same day via Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
How do customers want to engage with Medical Device companies post COVID-19? It is a question we need to ask and answer early on, because if we assume that it's business as usual, we will irritate our customers and tarnish the customer experience. During the lockdown, many clinical procedures have been supported via video conferencing. During the lockdown, many sales calls, introductions and product demonstrations have been delivered using video conferencing. During the lockdown, tender presentation pitches and adjudications have been conducted using video conferencing. Will it really be business as usual? Can we as Medical Device organisations, or any commercial organisation for that matter, assume that the normal we knew prior to March 2020, will ever be the same again? Where do we need to change? Where do we need to break our processes, and reconstruct them? Where do we need to divest? And, where do we need to invest?
During this pandemic, who have we decided to discard from our Medical Device organisations? Sales personnel? Marketing executives? Or clinical heads? COVID-19 has shone a bright light on our industry, revealing the needs of our customers in a different way, changing the Medical Device landscape from the one Johnson & Johnson faced when it founded its medical division in 1959, or William A. Cook when he founded Cook Medical in 1963, or GE Electronics when they created GE Healthcare in 1994. Since the beginning of the Medical Device industry our methods of engaging with Healthcare Professionals has not really changed, but will COVID-19, be the catalyst for change?
To chart the course and future of our industry, vision and strategy has to be the core attributes of our leadership, now more than ever. Do we need to visit procurement to discuss a tender, or can we use Zoom or Microsoft Teams? Will we need credentialing if we don't physically visit Healthcare Professionals in the hospital setting? The arrival of this pandemic has created the greatest shift in the way ‘business will be done' this century.
Plato said, 'Necessity is the mother of invention'. During the first half of 2020 the world has needed to re-invent itself, not just in Medical Devices, but in the way, we view social justice. We need new ways of engaging the Healthcare Professional community, that complies with the ever-stringent data privacy laws in Europe, and the rest of the world, whilst at the same time enabling us to work remotely more frequently on digital content. The product development cycle from design concept, all the way to patient outcomes will be developed by remote, more culturally diverse and disparate team members, from all over the world. Join me on this exciting journey, to change the Medical Device Industry and be part of redefining what is normal and what is possible!
Summary & Recommendations
Whilst greater access to video conferencing technology has been the catalyst for some working practice changes during the global lock down. It is not the technology on its own that will create lasting disruption of Medical Device organisations, and ultimately improve the patient experience. The real disruption is humanities adoption of the technology, this we must harvest, and adopt into products and treatment pathways. We need to innovate our business models and resist fighting the change in customer behaviour.
In closing ‘Customers disrupt markets, NOT technology alone!’ [1]
[1] © Thales S. Teixeira, The Decoupling Effect of Digital Disruptors, Harvard Business School.
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