Partners in Efficiency? Your Choice. Your Demand.

When you focus on increasing business efficiencies today and into the 21st century, it might seem misplaced — or at best, tertiary — to strategically target the expectations you place on your vendor relationships. The days of just “sell you and leave you” should be in the past. So too should your lack of expectations and demands for true service; a true relationship from your vendors.

Certainly, we’re not just talking repair and maintenance of product here. We’re talking true value-add business acumen. After all, a “partner” relationship is being promised like a magic elixir in almost every brand and marketing message today. If they extend the promise to hook you on a sell, why not truly extend your expectations and demands to the degree your vendors truly serve and partner with you — and fulfill their brand promise?

If not, vendors are merely selling you what they want to sell you, rather than you buying what you truly need. As consumers, we should never compromise our practices to match what’s available on the market. Supply should never define demand: Business Efficiency 101.

Want to increase your business efficiency? Demand and reward vendor relationships from company’s willing to take a seat at the table with you when it comes to developing initiatives for growing your business, honing and developing tools which maximize your best practices and resources, and increasing your efficiency while also increasing effectiveness.

How do you utilize your vendors in increasing your efficiency and effectiveness? You first challenge them to sell you what you need to buy. Have them live up to their promises to serve you by first starting to develop products which not only are the latest and greatest in technological capability for a specific task, but also automates business and procedural processes at the same time. This allows you to move faster, quicker and with more confidence. Have them think of repair and maintenance in a proactive frame of mind rather than a reactive frame of mind. With today’s communication and “everything wired” infrastructure, technology can be embedded in many products allowing for maintenance before something happens. Imagine the savings from equipment downtime?

Have them think about you. Sound like a pipe dream? A few years ago, a number of our customers demanded we think; demanded we bring real value to the table — and not just in producing the greatest endoscopic images on the market. They put our feet to the proverbial fire — as they should — and we responded.

As a result, today, we have a product line which not only provides great images, but also automates procedural tasks, and measures and benchmarks lab flow efficiencies; all at the mere touch of a button. We now think in terms of not only medical imaging, but “How does this effect the doctor, the nurse, the patient?” We are now rolling out true service initiatives that can actually tell our customers when they need an equipment repair before the equipment actually needs to be repaired. Predicted maintenance turns into predictive scheduling.

Further example of the power of demand, PENTAX GI labs now have the capability to communicate live with technicians — even during patient procedures — like On-Star. Our product line is defined by our customers, defined by our customers’ customers, and defined by advanced technology in medical capability and streamlining business efficiencies for GI labs. Why? Because our customers raised their expectations and demanded more; we chose to answer.

So, it might not be the first place you instinctively look when strategizing the increase of your business efficiency, but it just might be the most effective, long-term value you bring to the table: raise your expectations and demand true vendor partners — a partner who knows how to balance patient care and the business of medicine. 

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