MedTech-Industries: Prepare for a post-crisis transformation - Address boosting demand, invest strategically and position yourself within the newly defined supply chains

Starting point: The world will change - requirements will change

The effects of an unforeseeable crisis (ecological, political, social) or (natural or epidemic) disaster does not only change our personal life dramatically, our professional life is impacted as well. Being able to work from home, video conferencing and digital workshops are more important than ever before. Businesses have been affected in very differentiated ways, some sectors are dealing with sky-rocketing demand and others are in complete limbo, with an uncertain future ahead.

Surgery driven sales have been declining among others for the benefit of disposable PPE, ventilators and testing equipment. Sales reps are forced to work from home. Some jobs had to be terminated, others were reduced to a minimum.

Shortfalls and inadequacies in the health care systems around the world have been disclosed by the current crisis in a hurting and eye-opening way. Only few Eastern health care infrastructures and so­cieties have proofed their robustness and readiness for such epidemic developments - until now.

Especially in the Western hemisphere health care experts and think tank professionals around the globe are converging on a consensus on what needs to change after the crisis:

• Public health care will merge from being a cost-cutting hot spot to a new emphasis in public ex­penditure at the expense of other budgets, all of that will be well-received and cherished by the people
• Heavy investments to achieve an adequate level of infrastructure (equipment, facilities etc.) will be made where standards of adequate coverage and responsiveness were not achieved during the crisis
• The introduction of new technologies and especially digitalization will be publicly funded or co-funded to increase the efficiency of the entire health care system
• Public research and corresponding investment incentives will be distributed among companies, universities and research institutes to ensure a more leading-edge local testing and development environment
• Leading industrialized nations will strongly encourage and intensify to reach a certain level of self-restraint in what they consider to be critical areas such as production, infrastructure, critical re­search, testing and drug development. On the one hand, this could be heavily subsidized, on the other hand, it could be made a mandatory prerequisite for market entry, expansion of business activities, etc.

Solution: Get ready for higher demand and less globalization

Prepare for changes in upcoming demand structure:

• Refocus sales teams to quickly re-establish internal confidence and trust
• Explore digital sales channels more consequently than before
• Prepare for growing demand and increase efficiency by realigning your entire sales and marketing organization
• Re-balance production step-by-step from crisis mode to capacity extension

Define tailored offerings for clinics, doctors and public authorities:

• Re-design your product and services to meet the upcoming (publicly driven) demand (contingency plans safeguarding supply, broad financing options, novel fee and reimbursement instruments)
• Intensify global coverage through your own already established subsidiaries, distributors, dealers - the more the better.
• Connect with decision makers and key stakeholders in your relevant markets to anticipate their upcoming prioritie

Adapt your current footprint and global supply chains:

• Design an improved development plan for your site that incorporates both critical internal as well as increasing external requirements
  • Considering internal lessons learnt such as multi-regional production redundancies safe­guarding production and business continuity in times of (environmental, political, social) cri­sis and (natural, epidemic, catastrophic) disaster
  • Considering the growing external requirements towards locally self-sustaining and closed supply-chains as well as the production footprint in politically defined critical product cate­gories and infrastructures in the US, China and Europe
• Immediate adaptation of production resources to evolving market demand

Do you need more information? Do you want to learn how Santiago can actively support you in pre­paring your organization, providing know-how and boosting your business both locally and abroad?