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Medical device product strategy, pricing, and distribution
An excellent product begins with the strategies, which are both market and consumer driven. The product strategy ensures that the organization focuses on what matters and communicate it to the team. The approach also forms the basis of examining the product roadmap and subsequent products to be released in future. Regarding a medical device in a heath care organizations that are characterized by high technology and specialty, developing a product strategy plays an essential role due to the competitiveness in the market. These strategies include, product life cycle, branding, differentiation, focus, and costs. (Miller, & Washington, 2012).
The product life cycle of a medical device involves a sequence of stages from the introduction, growth, maturity, and decline stage. In the introduction stage the firm tries to establish product awareness and develops a market for the product. It is associated with low level of sales and high costs of developing research and consumer testing .the launch of the medical device needs to incorporate these values to build a market share. The health care practitioners may also involve in free testing to consumers to prove its efficiency. The growth entails increased sales and profits due to economies of scale in production. The heath care organization benefits from these advantages as a result of the existence of awareness about the effectiveness of the device incurring condition hence more consumers of health care products would be willing to consume the product as well as health practitioners.
The product life cycle at maturity, stage the medical device producer needs to maintain the market share .s a result of changing technology the consumption at this stage starts to diminish as consumers would demand newly improvised devices to carry out their undertakings. Therefore, the manufacturer needs to modify the device to meet the modern technology to gain a competitive advantage over the competitors. The declining stage the device consumption diminishes due to market saturation and the emergence of new improved equipment.
The product branding is an important product strategy for all organizations. It entails the establishment of the quality and development of intellectual property protection and rights like patents and trademarks. The sign or symbol used identifies the maker of the product. A health care producers of medical devices use branding to reveal the personality and perceive the value of the instrument which in turn encourages the doctors and other consumers to make purchases based on the brand rather than the prices or performance.( Lawrence, & Klimberg,2011).
The pricing of the products is a complicated process, which involves numerous considerations. The producer of the device may consider, customers preference, exchange rates, inflation, regulations, and competitor’s price. The company may adopt, price penetration strategy, which set a lower price to attract the customers. The market-skimming price whereby the producer enters the market as a single entity without competitors hence charge high prices to compensate for the development costs and comparative prices whereby the manufacturer set equivalent price to that of competitors and compete through other features of the product. The device producer also sets these prices aiming at satisfying the consumer by offering discounts.
The distribution of the medical device among the health care facilities and other consumers remains selective until the buyer shows the acceptance of the product especially in introductory stage of a the device in the market. As the customers accept the medical device as of positive impact on their health, the producer tends to increase channels of distribution to cater for growing demand. When the awareness and consumption increases; the distribution intensifies, and incentives are offered to encourage the preference over competing products. Therefore, the product strategy plays a critical role in improving the consumption of the medical devices in the healthcare organizations and producers of medical devices.
References
Lawrence, K. D., & Klimberg, R. K. (2011). Advances in business and management forecasting: Vol. 8. Bingley, U.K: Emerald.
Miller, R. K., & Washington, (2012). The 2012 healthcare business market research handbook.
10 years ago