How our Canadian Economic Value Proposition Solution helped a MD&D manufacturer achieve market success

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CanSummit consulting area(s) referenced in this case study: Accelerate Canadian Market Penetration

CanSummit consulting service(s) referenced in this case study: Value proposition excellence

Medical device description: Premium in vitro diagnostic (IVD) solutions. The medical device manufacturer has a suite of IVD analyzer, software, reagents, consumables, and services targeted at the hospital market in Canada. 

Medical device geographic region of origin: USA

Business challenge/ Project objective: The medical device manufacturer believed its products are innovative with a potential to offer important clinical and operational benefits to the hospitals compared to the alternative technologies. The manufacturer was keen on positioning its products at a premium over competition. However, its commercial team was faced with significant pricing objections in the Canadian market. As a result, the manufacturer was experiencing price erosion at existing accounts and challenges winning new customers.  

Our approach: We approached this challenge from a holistic, commercial strategy perspective. We knew that in order to help the medical device manufacturer achieve its sales and profitability goals, it will be important to find the value sweet spot that considered market conditions, customer criteria, competitive environment, overall clinical and economic value being created, and manufacturer’s commercial skills & capabilities to name a few. 

Our diagnosis: We started by establishing a baseline of key elements and current commercial practices e.g. 

  • Review of already available marketing and sales tools

  • Baseline of proficiency with which the marketing and sales tools were being implemented in the market

Our diagnosis of the situation was as follows: 

  • Currently available marketing and sales tools were primarily clinically or technically focused. Consequently, the commercial teams were highly focused on delivering the clinical or technical positioning messages to customers

  • The commercial strategy was not aligned with the evolving Canadian market environment where regional and provincial procurement and finance decision makers expected to see hard economic data

  • There were gaps in the sales coverage model 

  • The field team was not well equipped or comfortable to deliver economic messages 

Our solution: 

We developed and helped operationalize a Canada specific economic value proposition as our solution. We delivered the following in partnership with the commercial teams of the manufacturer:

  1. Researched, mapped, and quantified economic value benefits of the medical devices within Canadian context 

  2. Developed a compelling Canadian economic value proposition to complement the existing clinical positioning 

  3. Developed custom tools to enable tailored presentations of the economic value proposition down to procurement decision level e.g. a region, or a GPO, or even an individual site 

  4. Generated case studies to establish and demonstrate the Canadian economic value proposition  

  5. Delivered sales team training and in-field implementation support to operationalize the strategy

  6. Proposed enhancements to the sales coverage model     

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Project outcomes: The main outcomes of the project were as follows: 

  • The manufacturer is now successfully able to command a 30% price premium over competition

  • The Canadian business operation gained several new accounts and over a period attained 4x market share compared to other global markets for the same manufacturer 

  • The price erosion risk at existing accounts was successfully mitigated

  • The manufacturer created a new sales role specifically focused on economic value selling in complex, large accounts  

Key takeaways: 

  • Traditionally many MD&D manufacturers have focused on the clinical or technical benefits of their products. This approach is no longer effective

  • In the current Canadian market and procurement environment, it is crucial to have an effective Canadian economic value proposition for manufacturers to retain and expand their market share 

Important policy note: It is always our policy to protect our clients’ confidential information . Given the highly competitive nature of the MD&D market, our clients need us to keep their strategic project investments made with our firm as confidential . For this reason, we do not publish client identification information in our case studies. If required, we would be pleased to arrange for client references from this project for prospective clients, provided the prospective clients do not have a conflict of interest with this project’s client.    

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