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Neoforma Case Study
Category:
Healthcare Supply Chain Solutions
About:
Located in San Jose, California, Neoforma was publically traded (NASDAQ: NEOF) with revenues around $80M. The company delivered supply chain solutions to over 1,450 hospitals and suppliers, supporting more than $8 billion in annualized transaction volume. Its solutions consolidated contract information and order data providing a comprehensive view of the supply chain to reduce costs and improve efficiency.
Challenge:
The CEO was undertaking a major analysis of the market and the competition to evaluate strategic business alternatives in order to provide greater value to stockholders. He was challenged both with developing positioning and messaging for the company’s offering in a consolidating market, and in product marketing to expand growth with new products and services. He needed external strategic resources quickly, and was introduced to Accelent through members of his existing management team.
Assignment:
Accelent had three consultants on this project from June through December of 2004. The work effort was a combination of interim management and project work in strategic planning, product planning, market validation, and corporate communications.
Process:
We divided the work effort into a series of projects with specific goals and deliverables and put three consultants to work to tackle the various challenges. Barbara Saxby supported the CEO and VP of business development with M & A strategies and worked with the CTO and product marketing group to assess the market size, target customer profiles, and validate the demand for new product offerings. Neoforma also needed to understand more about a new business sector. Specifically, how a new group of users made procurement decisions and what needs were still unfulfilled given the solutions they were currently using. We developed a list of assumptions as to what we did know and also identified what we didn’t know. Marcia Kaplan, our survey research consultant, was brought in to help develop the questionnaire. She conducted 60 interviews with three target customer groups. Jennifer Johnson acted as the VP of marketing, and worked on updating the messaging platform as well as managing the corporate marketing team.
In this assignment, we delivered value through our strategic industry insights and developed a competitive analysis for the strategic plan. We created a new messaging platform and communication plan, and secured executive buy-in based on the detailed presentation of our recommendations. We completed the target customer interviews, analyzed the findings, and presented the survey results to the product marketing and management teams. Lastly, we had a positive impact on the organization with our ability to work with multiple teams across the organization and instituted several new business processes.
Outcome:
The strategic work and revised messaging contributed to the CEO’s mission to investigate strategic business alternatives in order to provide greater value to its stockholders. Neoforma agreed to a merger with Global Healthcare Exchange (GHX) in 2005 for $210M. GHX provides an open and neutral electronic trading exchange through which buyers and sellers can collaborate to improve efficiencies in the healthcare supply chain. The combined company offers cost-effective supply chain products and services to improve efficiencies for both healthcare providers and suppliers. |
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"We needed strong corporate marketing expertise and resources quickly. Barbara and her team stepped in to assist us with strategic marketing and business planning at a pivotal time in our company's evolution. They helped us to fill a key marketing management gap and to complete critical market analysis, market validation, corporate positioning and messaging projects over a six month period. They showed a real commitment to excellence and integrated well with our team. We appreciate their contributions at Neoforma and would recommend them for similar projects in your company.”
— Dan Eckert, President, Neoforma
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