Are you ready for when business comes back? It is a simple enough question, but the answer may be more complex than you would assume. Keeping current with the theme of our recent blog posts, we conducted outreach to medical device manufacturers of all sizes to gain insight into what they believe our industry can expect as the ban on elective surgeries is gradually lifted. In speaking with these companies, the consensus is the following:
It is not clear when hospitals will be allowed to perform elective surgeries
It is not clear which hospitals will be allowed to perform surgeries first
It is clear that the decisions on reopening will be made on a local basis
All of the above means that there will be a patchwork demand for equipment.
How will you meet demand and avoid losing sales in an environment where it is hard/impossible to predict where the demand will manifest itself?
One solution is to invest cash in building more inventory and spread the inventory across the country
Unless you are one of the largest medical device companies with big balance sheets, this is a hard strategy to pursue
An alternative is to invest/beef up your loaner capabilities
Retrieve inventory from consignment stock to supplement your loaner supply
Equip your salesforce, operations and customer support personnel with software to help them operate effectively and efficiently as a team
Ready to up your loaner game? Talk with us about how you can use our software and network of 3PL partners.
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