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.