New tech­nolo­gies come and go (the life­ cy­cle of a spe­cific type or vari­a­tion of med­ical device is typ­i­cally 5months to 10 years (av. 18months), and the same can be said medical device busi­nesses. Con­sider the typ­i­cal life­ cy­cle of a prod­uct, from pre-launch to decline, and its’ rel­a­tive per­for­mance in between. Do busi­nesses achieve or actu­ally max­imise sales growth along this entire curve through default or through con­sciously and strate­gi­cally rein­vent­ing the prod­uct and/or service offer­ing and it’s value? In other words, are busi­nesses suc­cess­ful because of them­selves or in spite of themselves?

The prod­uct life­cy­cle is a famil­iar strate­gic tool describ­ing sales trends over time lit­er­ally from inven­tion until demand fades. Typ­i­cally a non-linear growth curve, sales and profit in each stage of a par­tic­u­lar product’s life is vari­able rel­a­tive to demand and com­pet­i­tive positioning.

Trans­lated into a demand curve, where health tech­nolo­gies are used in rel­e­vant inter­ven­tions, another dimen­sion to this is the appli­ca­tion, and the over­all clin­i­cal out­comes of treatments.

While this life­ cy­cle model curve typ­i­fies the­o­ret­i­cal sales per­for­mance, it does not reflect the length of time in each phase, nor vari­able sales trends and inhibitors within each phase. Dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stances may arise that may impact sales, cre­at­ing a “gap” that needs to be addressed, nar­rowed and ide­ally elim­i­nated, so as to ensure sus­tain­abil­ity of busi­ness sales and profit. Life­ cy­cle man­age­ment serves to min­imise sales gaps and re-invent growth oppor­tu­ni­ties using appro­pri­ate strategy.

Poten­tial gaps may be antic­i­pated and min­i­mized before prod­uct launch, or through antic­i­pat­ing the impact of indus­try dynam­ics on the prod­uct, and tak­ing nec­es­sary tac­ti­cal action to min­imise, if not elim­i­nate them. Also, iden­ti­fy­ing and under­stand­ing the right cus­tomer and envi­ron­men­tal issues helps pre­dict busi­ness outcomes.

BRANDTECH Health­care Tech­nol­ogy Con­sult­ing cc offers such a strate­gic approach to clients for grow­ing busi­ness and extract­ing value through all phases.