Holding Fast Case Anylysis

Strategy Memo - Holding Fast Case

External Analysis:

 Crescordia is one of a handful of major companies that developed, manufactured, and sold the steel and titanium plates, nails, and screws—known as fixation devices—that surgeons used to repair broken bones. The medical institutions are the collaborators. The orthopedic surgeons are the target customers of Crescordia, and they also can give valuable feedback to Crescordia, and some of them are loyal customers who use Crescordia products exclusively. But with the development of resorbables, surgeons are beginning to switch to using resorbable devices. On one hand, surgeons want the products reliable to keep the success rate of surgery. On the other hand, surgeons, especially pediatric surgeons, also want to save the patient a second surgery to remove the device which resorbables are supposed to achieve this goal.

Collaborators：Surgeons, patient, medical institution, insurance company

Customers: surgeons, patients (end-users)

The technology of resorbables is not perfect, the lab testing in Crescordia still have a failure rate of 8%. One of the competitors of Crescordia has released their own resorbables which were proved not better than what Crescordia’s research results. While the reliability of this technology is questionable, Innotat is beginning to release more resorbable products, and have already took over 3 of Crescordia’s major accounts. Innotat has not hold a competitive advantage since its product is not perfect either, but at least it has already position itself into the resorbables business.

Besides, Crescordia may faces potential legal and regulatory consequences associated with medical malpractice and government standards. These could prove to be detrimental to the company.

Internal Analysis:

Crescordia has a top-level R&D team, their research result is not bad as the failure rate is 8%. They need to put the product into practice to make the product better. Crescordia’s excellent reputation and relationship with surgeons is difficult to duplicate in a short time, if Crescordia put resorbable products into the market, the loyal surgeons will put these new products into practice allowing Crescordia to keep its advantage. Additionally, the resorbable products can be further improved through limited field testing prior to a market wide release.

 Key Considerations:

1. The trend of customer needs. Though the technology is not perfect, some surgeons still choose to use resorbable products. If this is the future trends, it is better for Crescordia to move sooner rather than later into the resorbables business.

2. The sustainable of competitive advantages of Crescordia from a long-term view. The competitors who have already into the market may improve their technology and capture more market share, which would put Crescordia in a passive position in keeping up with changing market dynamic