HEALTHCARE TECHNOLOGY MARKETING CASE STUDIES
The work of Insighting Ideas to help clients overcome obstacles and capture opportunities is brought alive in these five case studies driven by Insighting Ideas partners. Each engagement involved a leading company in healthcare, including a top global medical device company, a global clinical information company, a diagnostic imaging pioneer, a leader in veterinary equipment, and some of the largest health insurance plans. (The names are not disclosed for our clients’ confidentiality).
For more cases – or better yet, to have us write one for you – contact us at info@insighting-ideas.com
Two birds, One stone: How to Jumpstart Legacy Products While Launching New Products
Instigation: The market leader in veterinary x-ray equipment realized that its market segment was maturing. In order to continually grow, they would need to expand beyond their core segments. They also recognized that their existing product lines would need to expand to support the needs of new markets.
Insight: Through interviews with key stakeholders, customers and industry experts, we identified the need to expand beyond the current x-ray systems into digital imaging. We developed the business case to pursue new digital technology, and helped the company craft the new product development strategy.
Although the primary goal project was to develop new digital technology, our research also revealed that there was still potential for the existing product line. We identified a new and growing market niche for the existing x-ray equipment, and helped the company to establish a sales channel to tap into this market.
Impact: Sales of the existing product line grew over 20% and helped finance the new initiative! As a result, the company was able to launch several new digital products within 12 months!
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When size matters… and doesn’t: How profit analysis drives better resource allocation
Instigation: A market leader in diagnostic imaging equipment was facing a perfect storm. Capital budgets were shrinking and technological substitution was growing. They needed to know which customers would drive growth for existing and emerging products. Naturally, larger customers were known (assumed) to be more profitable.
Insight: Through in-depth interviews with prospects, industry experts, suppliers and other stakeholders, we built a model to analyze cost and revenue data according to key dimensions such as geography, breadth of products purchased, tenure as a customer, and channel, in addition to company size.
Contrary to common industry thinking, our analysis revealed that geography and channel were more important than size in determining profitability. Our analysis also showed several other factors, which were not even considered at first, turned out to be among the most important!
Impact: As a result, the company completely redesigned its channel and segmentation strategy! In addition, the sales force got new training and new incentives. As a result, overall profitability increased by 7% in the first year alone. A move was begun to phase out certain classes of customers. Finally, positioning of several new product offerings was improved to reflect the new strategy, yielding faster adoption in market!
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Teaching Elephants to Dance: How overcoming differences leads to overcoming competition
Instigation: The most profitable large, national corporations were switching from a patchwork of independent Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BC/BS) associations for employee healthcare to national carriers with a single set of plans across the US. Sixteen very independent BC/BS associations each enjoyed established reputations in their home states.
The lack of common operating standards hampered their ability to attract large national clients. Consortium Health Plans (CHP) was formed to attract national corporations. But that meant all of them agreeing on a single national standard in every “customer facing” aspect of their operations. The task was daunting because the very words used to describe each requirement had to be fine-tuned for rigorous legal and marketing review. The process needed to include a wide range of staff from different functional disciplines. And each state BC/BS association’s long history of independence made cooperation even more elusive.
Still, the imperative of concluding the process expeditiously was great, as every day that the national operating standards lay unapproved meant millions in lost potential revenue to the system and further ground lost to competitors. But in previous attempts, the process for developing and approving standards had consumed six months and thousands of man-hours, and then required further time and effort for revisions!
Insight: CHP brought the power of CollaborWriting™ into the requirements development process. We were able to hammer out the best thinking and agreement to each set of standards in a series of 2- and 3-day sessions. This meticulous work was completed by a diverse panel including CHP leadership, individual plan administrators, healthcare providers, and nationally-recognized senior benefits consultants from some of the most prominent firms in the nation.
Impact: Cycle time was reduced more than 4000% -- from 6 months to less than 3 days per set of requirements, allowing CHP to enter the market months earlier than they would have been able. In addition, all agreed that the quality of the work produced was dramatically improved, saving further time, effort, and cost in later revisions.
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Doctor, Heal Thyself: How internal culture change enables External market growth
Instigation: A global medical equipment marketer had become an industry leader but was missing Wall Street’s growth expectations. The company was selling well among its current customers, but efforts to acquire new customers were stalled. Something had to be done to start the growth engine again.
Insight: The first step towards performing better out in the marketplace was assessing performance within the company. This revealed that the company had grown so large, it had begun to focus in on itself. The entire support structure had grown inward to focusing almost exclusively on customers already “within the fold”, as were advertising, marketing programs, and even sales teams.
The impact of this assessment was profound. A series of presentations were made to management, which implemented numerous recommended changes. Internal education was given to marketing and sales support teams that sensitized them in how to talk to prospects. Training on the art of prospecting was implemented and its impact was tracked. CRM processes were created and updated to focus on building the funnel. Marketing dollars were adjusted to enable new prospect-centric marketing programs to be created. Product Marketing was encouraged to seek out feedback from prospects, not just customers, and the communications strategy was refocused on differentiating the brand.
Sales focused on how to begin and keep relationships even when no immediate sales were forthcoming. A sales team was hired to focus exclusively on new business for the top two product lines. New business branding was created as a targeted component of the overall branding campaign. Prospects were invited to formerly customer-only events (webcasts, training seminars, etc.).
Impact: In just 16 months, the inward-facing culture of this supertanker was turned around. The team significantly increased prospect acquisition for the top two product lines, and four months ahead of schedule. The efficiency of the sales force increased 26%. And the effectiveness of efforts to attract prospects into the customer development “funnel” more than tripled!
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The Power of Products, Process, and People: How to catch up quickly by listening carefully
Instigation: A long-standing medical device leader was in the uncomfortable position of having to catch up with competitors. In order to regain the dominance they once held in the hospital market, they would have to leapfrog current competitors by disrupting the market with innovative product features and best-in-class implementation. They needed to identify the “white space” not owned by current products and to identify the “best practices” used by the top-rated implementation vendor.
Insight: Sometimes the greatest insights depend on the simplest details. In this investigation it was critical to engage the right people in the handful of hospitals around the country who knew these systems well enough to give us insights about their implementation and use. Interviews with multiple individuals in the same hospital provided a 360 degree perspective for our “Decision Dissection.” We also developed “Prospect Personas” of the decision makers to profile their role in the hospital, personal qualities, roles in the decision, views of the alternatives, and a key buying insight.
Because of our success, the client asked us to uncover insights about an even more elusive target – the few hospitals that implemented a competitive system that regularly score top KLAS ratings. We found them and found their “secret” – their success was not due to a superior product or process, as was expected, but to superior commitment to client satisfaction by their people!
Impact: Our 360 analysis of the needs of each persona, the decision-making process, and best practices by a top competitor had a dramatic impact on the company’s market planning. They gained the insight needed to shape the next generation of systems and leapfrog their competitors. They revised their thinking about how to staff and structure implementation teams. The client is on their way to reclaiming their spot at the top.
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