Breaking into Emerging Markets

As the crisis of 2008 continues to effect the growth of developed countries like USA, European Union and Japan, it seems like the key to boost business all over the world is knowing how to approach emerging markets.

However, this step requires a special strategy. Since there are clearly differences between developed and developing economies, one must take into consideration these facts when deciding to formulate a strategy.  One frequently mentioned advice is not to approach emerging markets alone. Local partnership is recommended because the national partner has the know-how of the market, key-suppliers, regulatory environment, etc.

Another advice concerns to pricing. Local firms are used to lower labor cost so the final price is low. Pricing the product properly is essential to successful sales in these kinds of markets.

“ (…)it's imperative for device firms to recognize that cheaper does not mean lower quality.”

By Arundhati Parmar, Senior Editor, MD+DI

References: http://www.mddionline.com/article/going-it-alone-poor-strategy-trying-break-emerging-markets-0

Outsourcing as the key to Competitiveness

As the industry suffers from uncertainty pressures, the trend to remain competitive is turning to outsource. A Study surveyed MD+DI’s readership about outsourcing in the medical device sector ranked a list of concerning issues for the next 5 years. Regulatory hurdles, intellectual property, R&D and device tax were the most mentioned.  

The majority of the respondents agreed that outsourcing is an answer to save costs and time. For the next five years, most of them are looking for increasing the numbers of contract service. Besides manufacturing service, companies are interested in legal and regulatory services as well as R&D and design capabilities.

US-based service providers are the most common when outsourcing a project, however Russia and Latin America are the regions that the respondents most expect to expand outsourcing activity in the coming years.

Biokyra Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento is a Brazilian medical device company that may become one of the providers to the US industry when it decides to expand its contract service to Latin America.

References: http://www.mddionline.com/article/5-years-medtech-firms-will-outsource-design-legal-and-regulatory-services-over-manufacturing