A Medical Technologies Company

MEDIQUIP CASE ANALYSIS

Introduction

Mediquip S.A., a medical technologies company based in Europe, specializes in the sales of CT Scanners. Within the market, they are at a disadvantage because many of their competitors have been there longer and know the decision-makers better. Another difficulty for Mediquip S.A. is the relatively small market for CT Scanners which in Europe is about 200 units per year.

The case study outlines the sales process between Mediquip S.A. and Lohmann University Hospital. When working with other public sector organizations, which make up a majority of Mediquip S.A.’s customers, there are normally at least four major decision-making groups involved. These include: the radiologists who work directly with the equipment, physicists who write the technical requirements, the administrator who takes care of the financials, and a supporting agency who makes the final decision. At Lohmann University Hospital, they are Professor Steinborn, Dr. Rufer, Carl Hartmann, and an unnamed group, respectively. Kurt Thaldorf, the sales engineer at Mediquip S.A. was in charge of this prospect.

The sales process in this case took eight months. Throughout this time, the price of the CT Scanner dropped from 2.85M euros to 2.61M euros before it was lowered to the final offered price of 2.37M euros.

The salespeople at Mediquip S.A. have a strong focus on the customer, decision makers, installed equipment, planned new equipment, competition, sales plans, action plans, and order processing. However, this process went astray at some point, and in the end, Mediquip S.A. was unable to make the sale.

Statement of Major Problems:

In our analysis of this scenario, we discovered that there were three major problems that led to Mediquip losing Lohmann University Hospital’s order.

• Mediquip’s mishandling of pricing (which is separated into several subsets).

• A failure in specificity when regarding the products, including a failure to fully explain the attributes of their offerings.

• Thaldorf’s failure to fully understand and utilize the major sources of influence going into the University’s decision.

Price:

Key assumptions:

o Information concerning the hospital’s budget would be readily available.

o Thaldorf was able to do some financial analysis to strengthen his sales pitch. If this information was available, Thaldorf could have used it to his advantage, and may have been able to win LUH’s order.

Issue Statement: (Refusal to Drop Price)

Mediquip