Customer Relationships Strategies in Medical Device Industry-Role of CRM & Knowledge Management

It is predicted that "Customer Relationship Strategies in Medical Device Industry" will be of particular value to business development, marketing and top-line corporate personnel in the medical device industry who are seeking to gain competitive advantage through enhanced knowledge and relationship strategies.

The medical device companies have to use those strategies to better:

- identify up-sell and cross-sell opportunities
- identify partnership and collaborative agreements for new product development
- identify creation of profit from interaction with key opinion leaders and influencers
- realise increased collaboration with distributors to promote channel efficiencies
- create more highly trained, motivated and pro-active sales forces
- apply customer segmentation strategies to positively impact the bottom line and manage employee knowledge to drive innovation.

In the age of cost control, capitated payments and the need for health technology assessments and evidence based medicine the healthcare industry is now looking towards customer relationship management and information technologies (IT) to give them the strategic/competitive advantage within the marketplace.
The most "high profile" business tool for this purpose is the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution. In just a few years CRM has evolved from a single-function "point-to-point" solution for applications such as Sales Force Automation (SFA), Customer Service (CS), or the call centre to more sophisticated multi-functional integrated, out-of-the-box "suite" CRM solutions.

Knowledge transfer processes within an organisation need to be streamlined and rather than include just a customer relationship management strategy, the initiative must also incorporate employee and customer knowledge within an all-encompassing programme which also takes into account corporate culture change at all levels from senior management through to the most junior of sales representatives. An assessment of knowledge and relationship management strategies within the medical technology sector highlights a number of key findings, one of which is that companies are addressing their knowledge transfer efforts in order to optimise the sales and marketing performance of their businesses as well as promoting a culture of "innovation" and ideas sharing. A company which is seen advocating this concept quite aggressively is Siemens, and as part of this company's corporate strategy the Medical Systems division has in place a system which seeks to detect new trends in customer preference, purchasing habits, and faster identification of cutting edge technology and solutions offering for customers.

The analysis of the methods used by medium-sized and major corporate bodies to tackle knowledge transfer requirements suggests that great strides have been made in implementing processes which aim at identifying the barriers to greater knowledge sharing and, most importantly the promotion of innovative practice amongst employees. It must be stressed that improving knowledge and relationship management requires a "champion" of the process within the company who acts upon a clear and direct vision based on goals which are achievable and can generate a visible ROI. Within the medical devices sector it is imperative to afford sufficient attention to communities of practice and networks involving early adopters and opinion leaders.

Medical device companies have established that the principal benefits associated with the implementation of CRM solutions in the medical industry are:

1. Centralised Repository of Data and Information (CRDI): CRM provides an opportunity to establish a single data warehouse for the entire organisation whether this is a multinational based company such as GE Medical Systems or Johnson & Johnson or smaller med tech players. It provides a database with a complete view of all customer interactions, from sales and marketing to customer service and support.

2. Potential Cost Savings: There is considerable potential for cost savings to be made in the medical industry through more efficient use of resources by:

- Consolidation of contact centre/front-office operation
- More effective/efficient balance between front and back office staff
- Integration of information databases leading to more effective (more accurate and quicker) revenue
collection
- More productive time on customer facing activities and more productive staff time
- Improved resource planning and scheduling, based on accurate data collected over time
- Insights into the drivers of calls, and therefore ideas for call avoidance.