Kudos to NWCDC for the Keynote – a real, live health care expert spoke for 90 minutes (!) on achieving excellence in medical care.
Arthur Southam MD, the leader of Kaiser’s hospitals and health plan operations, was a great choice. Admittedly I’ve always been a fan, so perhaps I’m not the objective reporter one would want.
Saw some but not a lot of traffic on the exhibit hall floor in a quick pass thru. Lots of really big booths these days but the number of exhibitors seems to be down from past events. That’s not surprising; industry consolidation in most of the niches means there are fewer companies to exhibit…
Interesting conversation today with a medical management services exec. The discussion ended up focusing on the kind of intelligence or awareness needed to build and grow a successful company.
What business starters have is an intrinsic, almost visceral understanding of what their customers want. They KNOW what their new company needs to do to meet those demands and they focus intensely on every little thing involved in delivering to the customer.
As these companies grow, the successful ones continue that intense focus. They know who their customers – the ones who “buy” or choose to use their services – are. They spend time with those customers; a LOT of time. They develop relationships based on that shared time together, but more importantly the relationship is anchored in the customer’s belief that the vendor understands them and their world.
The next stage is often a buy-out or sale. In some cases, the buyer recognizes the value inherent in that focus, and supports it financially and strategically. Investing in technology, staff, training; getting out to actually visit customers and end users (often neglected if not ignored completely), these buyers use their business acumen and experience to build ever deeper relationships.
Others focus on the numbers, all but ignoring what drives those numbers. And that’s where they fail.
There’s much more to this, but it’s really late. More tomorrow.
Thanks for this update! It’s always great to see that things like NWCDC allow medical professionals to speak like that.
Spending the time and developing the relationships is the key.