Blog

26Sep 2021 by cesare ferrari

7 Practical Actions To Promote Integration Between Marketing And R&D

After publishing a recent post that you can read here. I received feedback regarding the content, where one of the readers pointed out that the post was a bit academic. And not providing practical and actionable suggestions to increase integration and reduce the inter-functional conflict between marketing and R&D. I’ve decided to revisit the topic and provide some implementable tools to promote integration and reduce the risk of functional or dysfunctional conflicts. Highlighted below are some of the detailed points. 1. Alignment Any formal and informal opportunity should be used to make sure that the cross-functional team agrees on the fact that a successful product depends equally on the customer’s needs satisfaction, as on technological capabilities. 2. Team building Team building activities are available in a vast range to address specific limits…

11Sep 2021 by cesare ferrari

Why The Number One Reason For Product Failure Lies In NOT Satisfying Customer Needs

Upstream marketing

In 2007, the pharmaceutical giant; Pfizer withdrew from the market only a year after launching the first inhalable insulin, making Exubera one of the biggest flops in pharma and the whole healthcare business. I would like to use this example to support the thesis of using a proper VOC to identify customer needs and develop products to solve customer problems. To make the point clear right from the beginning, I know that in hindsight, it is easy to find the weak points that were not identified or not fully considered during the development process. Again, the aim of this example is not to criticize. But to bring attention to customer needs and discuss these critical elements in medical device development once more. Brief Story Of Exubera Pfizer Exubera, the first…

04Sep 2021 by cesare ferrari

How To Reduce Marketing And R&D Conflicts And Develop Better Medical Device

Upstream marketing

Have you ever seen new products that arrive too late on the market, costs of development that overrun and new products that do not offer real value to the customer? Well, one of the root causes are the conflicts between marketing and R&D. I think everybody agrees that effective coordination between various groups in the organization, such as R&D, marketing, and engineering plays an important role in the process of developing a medical device. However, the reality is that an effective and harmonious relationship is the exception rather than the rule. Problems related to poor inter-functional cooperation, communication, lack of clarity of goal and inadequate definition of project responsibilities, are frequent in any kind of organization. And you do not need to be a brilliant manager to know that poor…

29Aug 2021 by cesare ferrari

Are You Over Underestimating The Power Of The Sales Force Training?

Sales

Investing resources in the sales force (direct or indirect) is almost always paying a good interest rate. The best part of it all is that you can invest in your sales force in different ways; however, I think one of the key investments is Training. As you already know I started my professional career in sales, and I still strongly believe that spending a few years in sales is one of the best things you can do to develop a deep understanding of the market’s needs. Surprisingly, one of the market’s needs often not totally understood is a well-trained sales force. And for a prospect or customer, there is nothing more frustrating than interacting with a salesperson who does not have sufficient knowledge about their product. The Basics Of Sales…

22Aug 2021 by cesare ferrari

Ethnography: The (not so) Secret Ingredient Of Your VOC- Voice Of The Customer

Upstream marketing

Introduction Since you've been following my blog content closely, by now you already know that I'm an advocate of the VOC (Voice of the customer), as it's a source of innovation for medical device companies. More so, I have already treated the interviews extensively as a method to collect input from customers. Today, I will provide you an analysis of customers’ observations known also as ethnography, as a complementary tool to collect customer needs and wants. What Is Ethnography? The term “ethnography” is an academic and more polished way to refer to observations. Ethnography is a research methodology used by anthropologists, and it implies the observation of people in their natural environment with the goal of understanding how people live their lives. Furthermore, Ethnographic research involves collecting data in real…

16Jul 2021 by cesare ferrari

Segmentation, Targeting And Positioning For Medical Devices. Part 2

Downstream marketing

Still on the subject, this is the second and final post about the strategic marketing for medical devices, which includes segmentation, targeting and positioning. Today, I'll discuss mainly; about targeting because in my experience it is the most difficult step of the process. If you're probably wondering why I'm not discussing segmentation first, well that's because I already talked about it extensively in my previous post- You can refer to it (Part 1- Segmentation) here. Introduction "You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks."Winston Churchill This quote is inspiring and has a lot to do with today’s topic. Let me tell you the truth, it only goes to show that not every distraction requires your attention. I know it is difficult…

03Jul 2021 by cesare ferrari

Segmentation, Targeting And Positioning For Medical Devices. Part 1

Downstream marketing

What is the core of strategic marketing for medical devices? Well, this short article is the first of a couple posts in which I consider what I have found about the trilogy of strategic marketing: Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning, to be useful for our industry. Hence, I will use it as an opportunity to share some patterns I have seen in several companies during my career. Introduction "If you’re not thinking segmentation, you’re not thinking."Theodore Levitt As a salesperson, it was difficult for me to understand and accept that there were customers that I shouldn’t be targeting because the offering wasn’t going to convince them. After all, I had a general idea that my job as a marketer was to help potential customers see why that particular product was a…

19Jun 2021 by cesare ferrari

How To Conduct Effective Qualitative Interviews That Will Produce Great Data (part 2)

Upstream marketing

This is the second post where I'll be talking about qualitative customer interviews and here, I'll discuss the process of preparation, implementation and their most common problems. I will also enlighten you on all the serious issues that prevent you from getting useful data for better product development. You can refer to part 1 here and follow the guide below on how to conduct qualitative interviews that yield results: Piloting Another element to the interview preparation is the organization of a pilot test with colleagues or participants. The pilot test will help you in finding out limitations, or weaknesses within the interview design and will allow you to make necessary revisions. The pilot test will also assist you with the refinement of the questions and it will be a helpful…

05Jun 2021 by cesare ferrari

How To Conduct Effective Qualitative Interviews That Will Produce Great Data (part 1)

Upstream marketing

In this previous post, I discussed the importance of VOC, especially at the beginning of a new product development process and various methodologies to collect it. I also mentioned that a VOC study should include different forms of data collection, to provide the development team with a well-rounded database of information for analyses. And one of the techniques to gather the VOC is customer interviewing. With that being said, this is the first of 2 posts that explores an effective way to conduct qualitative interviews, by employing a simple process for implementation. What Are Qualitative Interviews? Qualitative interviews are well-structured conversations with a subject that represents the targeted customer. Interviewees are asked identical questions and the questions are worded so that responses are open-ended. This structure allows the participants to…

22May 2021 by cesare ferrari

You too… Do you think that the VOC (Voice of the Customer) doesn’t Work? I don’t!

Upstream marketing

I have already analyzed; the fundamentals of the Voice of the Customer (VOC) in my previous post, and today I will go through some ideas against the VOC. Introduction Speculations have already been raised, as to the effectiveness of VOC, and to some, they feel that it's actually not needed in the process of developing medical devices. In case you're wondering if there's really a need to clarify this, the instances below should clear your doubts. A couple of friends; experienced medical device marketers once said to me that VOC is not working. And they explained further, saying that real innovations are generated by visionaries. Likewise, two sentences supporting this thesis, that I’ve heard more than once are: “If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster…