Background

Nihon Kohden is Japan’s largest manufacturer of electronic medical equipment. Working with their U.S. patient monitoring division, RiechesBaird was commissioned to create growth strategies for increased market share and to develop the company into a thought leader, thereby building preference for their products and solutions.

Issue

Penetrating the U.S. hospital market can be a daunting task, especially for a domestic division competing against two formidable global brands—GE and Philips. Although Nihon Kohden had been in the market for several years, their awareness was extremely low and the value proposition was undifferentiated.

Strategic Insight

Our discovery process revealed several interesting insights. First, we confirmed that hospital administrators viewed patient monitoring products as commodities—making it a challenge for top institutions to understand Nihon Kohden’s competitive advantage. Secondly, their current value proposition was based on product innovation and value, but it was not being promoted in the market. Lastly, we discovered a major market opportunity. Every year, thousands of hospital patients die from adverse events (e.g., heart attacks) that could have been prevented if detected sooner. The majority of these events occur with unmonitored patients.

Typically, round-the-clock patient monitoring is limited to ICU and a few other wards due to cost and technology restraints. However, with advancements in Nihon Kohden’s technology and their cost equation, monitoring more patients became possible and affordable—giving hospitals a new way to reduce costly ICU admissions.

Working closely with the Nihon Kohden team, we created a new category of monitoring and branded it “Defensive Monitoring.” We promoted the concept in sales presentations and substantiated it with a new suite of interrelated products—and coined the suite Prefense, a conjugation of “preventative” and “defense.”

Using this approach, we repositioned the corporate value proposition as a solution sell and supported it with the new tagline, “Transforming patient care with technology.” Then we created a go-to-market strategy to penetrate new targets and implemented it.

Result

Based on its recent analysis of the multi-parameter patient monitoring equipment market, Frost & Sullivan recognized Nihon Kohden with the 2008 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Market Share Advancement. Nihon Kohden has gained a solid foothold in this mature and highly competitive market through various successful competitive strategies. They have had unprecedented growth, their awareness/thought leadership has grown dramatically and, most importantly, hospitals and patients are benefiting from the many technological advancements and contributions Nihon Kohden has made to the industry.

"I have been very fortunate to engage ReichesBaird as my strategic business partner for two distinct strategies.  The first strategy was transactional  based and my core business unit and the second is based on the development of a "Blue Ocean Strategy" called Defensive Monitoring.  

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