Understanding the Internet Strategy of Medical and Surgical instruments

The use of the Internet for marketing and selling surgical instruments is very important for the med-surgical industry, and everyone knows that. "The e-commerce is supposed to change the way business is conducted but the people within the industry are resistant to it. why? Because there's a lot of (expletive deleted) going around out there as to what is going to happen", says one high-level executive of a prominent mid-western group that's in the surgical instruments purchasing organization." "To me, there is one question: What can you really do with a platform of that kind? I don't think that you can really use it to sell surgical instruments or other items ,and I think that the manufacturers and distributors will be not agree with his tendency of making everything a commodity. Another fact is that the hospital's executives don't know how to make a profit with Internet. Look what happens when you try to quantify the role of Internet commerce", says Joe Boystak, managing director of Sutro & Co, a seller and buyer of surgical instruments. "The revenues of an Internet company can be about $50 million to $60 million. It is unprecedented. Only 5% of companies currently use the Internet for something other than just a Web site but their revenues of quite are huge " ,says Sam Greco, president, International Healthcare Investments, Brentwood, Tenn. In the analyst's idea the surgical instruments industry has been slow to adopt the Internet. There are many executives who would prefer not to deal with the Internet but they know that the future is hitting everyone in face, and they realize that the Internet is the only fact in the professional survival. "It causes a lot of sleepless nights! You get to wondering, and you are asking yourselves! Are we the barnacles on the whale in this whole process?", says one of the executives involved in the surgical instruments trading business. An informal poll conducted by HTI (Health Industry Today) reveals the lack of knowledge within industry about how to use the Internet as a marketing device for aqcuiring surgical instruments. More than 80%, of the interviewed executives preferred not to comment because they had not yet formulated their e-commerce strategy. "I thought about it a lot , and I'm not talking about it because I don't know the answers" ,said one executive. The e-commerce with surgical instruments may be a new marketing Mecca but the road to Internet success is not without pitfalls. "The practitioners of surgical instruments e-commerce should expect new and increased competition from any number of sources, an Internet phenomenon called channel Conflict that creates problems with and the loss of traditional lines of distribution" says Stu Grossman, director of customer satisfaction and quality for Eastman Kodak's Health Imaging Division. So, the time to integrate the Internet in the surgical instruments manufacturing and trading business is now, because your competitors are already hard at it.