Staying in Day Zero mode
In Nov 2016, we launched Doctor’s Bazaar at Medica Dusseldorf. A platform which would help connect medical device companies and hospitals around the world — simplifying product discovery, improving engagement, encourage networking and drastically improve product curation / comparison capabilities in this industry and make cross border transactions much more simpler.
During the medical device expos, I go away impressed by the potential, the technological prowess and products on display of small and medium size companies. If only these companies had access to emerging markets where their products could be discovered and they had a medium to remain engaged with the customers, the enormous risk they had undertaken by investing in their products and technology could be mitigated to a large extent.
One of the objectives of the Doctor’s Bazaar platform was to give an equal chance to small and medium medical device companies which face challenges in scaling up their sales and distribution network globally esp. in developing countries to compete with bigger players and more established companies. We do this by democratizing search ranking, technically categorizing products into the equivalents by letting engagement and responsiveness drive traffic.
Our marketing team spent their efforts in targeting the small and medium (Euro 5Mn — Euro 50 Mn annual revenue) companies during the trade show. These were companies which had a great brand reputation in their regions of operation but were relatively unknown outside. Our platform could offer a huge impact to these companies in terms of new enquires, sales opportunities, analytics on new markets etc. We assumed that larger companies given their network and financial muscle would be difficult customers with long gestation periods. Smaller brands would bring in diversity and and in our assumption be hungry for growth and hence more responsive.
We were in for a huge surprise. Most of the small and medium companies had reached their “Potential”. They were successful in their small realms they had no ambition. “Sandeep, your platform is excellent. I am sure it will add more enquires and open up more opportunities, but, do you know I run a $10Mn company? I make a good income, have great hobbies and spend quality time with my family. My product plant has a 100% utilization rate. I do not want additional orders from new customers. That’s going to complicate all existing processes and I have to start the cycle all over again to meet this demand” said one such potential customer.
One day at the expo was sufficient to urge a change in our strategy. We decided to target the bigger guys — the Fortune Group.We approached the stall of a “Top 50” medical device company. We were led to a smart gentleman in his late 30’s. He was the marketing head of APAC and what started out to be 5 minute intro developed into a 1 hour presentation at the stall. He brought in other key sales and marketing personnel into the discussion and we were able to lay out an onboarding plan for his company. Their returns from the platform has been strong enough to trigger a renewal this year
This company had billions of dollars in annual sales and thousands of employees globally. Surely that gentleman could have collected our brochure and promised to get back without even meaning to do so. We were an unproven company with an unproven product. But the fact that he chose to listen, internalize the idea and champion it around the company proved to be a game changer for his company and the markets it addresses.
What impressed me the most about that company was the curiosity to watch out for something new, willingness to listen to ideas, courage to try them out in pilot and the industriousness to implement it across their operations regardless of the size and scale they are at now.
We are glad we focused our engagement with a select group of companies that had these qualities because of which we could build a very strong foundation for our product based on their inputs and feedback.
We at Doctor’s Bazaar now segregate companies (target list) into two. Companies that can imagine and companies that lack imagination. The first set of companies, imagine possibilities of how our platform / product / application can blend into their business. They give is a wish-list or rather a dream list of how they see their business 5–10 years down the line and how our platform can help them get there. There is nothing better than a customer who is willing to integrate their roadmap with your product. The companies that will remain relevant in the coming years will the companies that can imagine and I sure want them in my customer list.
“Day Zero” is a phrase I picked from Jeff Bezos, a leader I idolize a lot. What I appreciate the most about him is that, created an army of Bezos in Amazon with “Day Zero” culture. That makes amazon a formidable force to reckon in any industry they chose to operate. Not because of technology or the vast amount of cash reserves that can be replicated easily. But this culture can never be easily replicated. To know more please find the link https://blog.aboutamazon.com/working-at-amazon/2016-letter-to-shareholders
“Can you help us build a online store?” led us to develop the StoreFront application — which is the most impactful platform to create online stores at a global level. A Whatsapp message requesting for a contact of a service engineer from a biomedical engineer at a hospital led us to develop the AssetManager — the first integrated asset management tool. These applications and many more are being developed in collaboration with our customers.
Our product is what it is because of many such companies — both in Medical Device companies side and from hospital side. Our interactions with our customer has generated enough fodder for our tech team to keep creating new technology and application in the next 3–5 years. We remain open to ideas and suggestions and comment, feedback, suggestion or question is discussed in great detail.
We will remain in perpetual beta because for us, our product is never finished…its always a WIP..Thank you Bezos… for that perspective.
Doctors Bazaar (www.doctorsbazaar.com) is an Enterprise platform for medical devices which performs Networking, Interaction and Marketplace functions. It aims to connect thousands of medical device Companies with millions of hospitals, clinics and doctors around the world — Improving product discovery, product — therapy fit, global procurement and servicing solutions for medical devices. Try out the site at https://doctorsbazaar.com/
