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IMDA 2001
Annual Management Conference
Conference Highlights
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It’s a different market
today. But despite group purchasing, contracts and hospitals’ cost-cutting
efforts, specialty distributors have ample opportunities to excel, said
Ron Stephenson, expert on medical products distribution and professor of
marketing at Indiana University. But opportunities may lie in some
unexpected places.
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In today’s environment,
specialty distributors have to understand the financial condition of their
customers and how new technology will affect that, said Nancy Reaven,
president of La Canada, CA-based Strategic Health Resources. Reaven showed
IMDA members how to help their customers assess the clinical and financial
impact of new technologies.
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Your website should be a
call to interaction, a call to create a relationship, said Jennifer
Renauld, director of new business development for Minneapolis-based
ThreeWire. Too many sites provide plenty of information but little
direction for viewers and potential customers. Don’t let yours fall into
that trap.
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When it comes right down to
it, manufacturers who work through distributors really want to know just
one thing: “How are you going to manage my business when I co-mingle it
with yours?” Working with Bradenton, FL-based software company MedXChange,
Products for Surgery (Forest Hill, TX) has taken some bold steps to help
it manage its business correctly and stay focused on the customer.
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Clinician-preference items –
the kind most often carried by specialty distributors -- are now fair game
for group purchasing organizations. Two GPO executives (Todd Ebert and
Gary Kane of AmeriNet) explained to IMDA members how they can get involved
with that GPO’s Clinical Service Program.
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Even if you’re not thinking
of buying a business or selling your own, you should still know the
fundamentals of valuating companies. IMDA Legal Counsel Mitchell Kramer
showed IMDA members how to do just that.
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What are materials managers’
expectations of their suppliers’ Internet capabilities? Back by popular
demand was Al Cook, chief resource officer for St. Francis Medical Center,
Monroe, LA, who addressed IMDA at an earlier conference. Cook is
president-elect of the Association of Healthcare Resource & Materials
Management, and head of an e-commerce task force of materials management
executives.
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