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Page 158 GO IT ALONE!
- Extreme outsourcing “is what enabled us, as David, to have a sharper spear when we went to fight Goliath,” says Lortz. He guided the company in outsourcing everything possible to ensure that it was handled well but did not deflect the company’s attention. Consequently, TheraSense could focus its resources in the high-leverage areas that were critical to its success: building awareness of the benefits of this new kind of product—through its sales force, among health care professionals and the patient population—and successfully developing a facility to manufacture the strips that incorporated its innovative electrochemical sensing technology.
The company completed its entire development and roll-out in 2 years, which is half the standard time for its industry. Outsourcing both saved the firm money and allowed it to get going faster. The company presented a professional image. “By leveraging world-class resources, we also gave patients and doctors the clear impression that we were here to stay,” said Kulp. During its early planning process, TheraSense concluded “that patients had to have the reassurance of feeling that they were dealing with a big company,” and that we would fail “if we made people feel that there were compromises involved in doing business with us,” she said. “The huge infrastructure of our outsourcing providers” allowed TheraSense to succeed in providing a high level of service and professionalism. Through outsourcing, TheraSense maintained an unprecedented degree of flexibility. For example, in competing for a major project with one retailer, TheraSense developed and brought to market special packaging within 6 weeks, whereas its larger, established competitor gave up after 6 months because its systems were too inflexible to accommodate this special order.
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GO IT ALONE! Copyright 2004 by Bruce Judson. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
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