Sunrise medical Inc. case study summary notes

Guardian Products-> crutches, walkers
Quickie Designs -> only wheelchairs

Strategic planning at 1994, guardian plan to penetrate lightweight standard wheelchair market
which Quickie has 13% market share (57% -  Invacare)

Invacare - single salesforce

Lightweight standard wheelchair -> Quickie invented this category but its strategy has no competitive anymore since its market share is dominant by invacare
Growth in sales forecast at 15% p.a
Medicare distinguish lightweight standard wheelchair from standard ->
Medicare reimbursement up to $850 trigger to increase sales in lightweight standard products

Guardian has advantage in lightweight standard wheelchair product since they also served elderly from their standard wheelchair so know their customers. and it has bigger margin than other product they sold in the market.


Selling process
Dealer
physical therapist
physicians
patients
insurance company

Wholesale 60% of retail price paying to manufacturer
large dealer 42%


Distribution channel

	Standard	Lightweight	Ultralight/sports	power&pediatric
Rehab suppliers	10%	10%	75%	75%
General HME dealers	55%	70%	25%	25%
Meg/surg distributors	35%	20%

Rehab suppliers
General HME dealers
Meg/surg distributors

Invacare distribute its products through general HME dealers
Bundling -> invacare’s price is based on dealer’s volume  in the entire invacare line. up to 42% from retail price


Guardian’s decision for lightweight standard wheelchair - changes in medicare guideline in 1993
a few changes on its standard wheelchair model and can be 10% below of wholesale price than invacare’s

Quickie’s brizzy - lightweight standard model
simpler design with fewer parts and welds
aluminum alloy frame
nylon upholstery
bright colors
Both management of Quickie and Guardian acknowledged Quickie’s and Invacare’s are better than Guardian’s proposed product in design, materials, and features

Guardian’s marketing approach
60% from general HME dealers
40% med/surg distributors
bundle discount and free freight to dealers like invacare
5% higher price than competitor due to higher quality

1993, Guardian had problems on quality and delivery problem with its Taiwanese vendor which is handling fabrication of wheelchair

Proposal to Sunrise inc
Let Guardian to penetrate lightweight standard wheelchair product and serve the needs of general HME dealers price pressure because Guardia’s lightweight standard model can be 10% lower in wholesale price than Invacare. And also for the rehab dealers, Sunrice can still offer the Quickie’s model.
And for the unified order-entry system for the large buyers which might be general HME dealers and med/surg distributors, Sunrise can set contact line or single salesforce which will role unified order-entry system and the salesforce can distribute the order to respective department.


Market Segmentation
Elderly Young Adults Sports player People who can not use manual wheel chair

Market Targeting
Invacare -

Guardian’s penetration to lightweight standard wheelchair market

Advantage

Refreshment in the company
This market is dominant by Invacare although this category was created by Quickie first. And Quickie is focused its effort on Ultralight product now. But penetrating by Guardian can make the Quickie team refresh and be more creative like the early period

Competing at Lowering Price
By few changes of its standard product, it can produce lightweight standard product and it  can cause offering at 10% lower price in wholesale than its competitors

Reducing possible quality and delivery problem by eliminating subcontracted company


Disadvantage

Quickie has 13% market share already so it has conflict market within the company

Quickie and Invacare are superior in terms of Design, materials and features than Guardian’s proposed lightweight standard wheelchair

School of tomorrow Philippines

I visited School of tomorrow Philippine office yesterday in order to inquire SOT program. Their office is located in Paranaque city, it was not so difficult to find out it.

After I arrived the office, it is actually school, their office is located inside some school, we inquired about the registration, procedures, tuition fee etc,

With SOT, we can do homeschooling with their materials because their textbooks and teaching manual is very well made I think, it was well-organized and detailed in terms of teaching procedures and contents also. And also we can establish school with their system, paying like loyalty, and also many of schools and colleges approve the record of study in SOT for the admission of their school.

here is some information about SOT program

Programs
They offer the program for pre school to college students. So the kids who can not read ABC to mature college students can study with SOT.
The subjects also cover all subjects which are handled in public school.
The textbooks are very good, it has two version, US and local. US version is with color.

Registration
At first, the applicant should undergo so called ‘diagnostic test’ which probably gives some simple test to the kids like IQ test but I didn’t see the questions. And after that, based on the result of the test, the school assign or suggest certain level of course to the student and then, the student can get their textbook and materials. So homeschooling starts.

Pricing
Tuition fee was not expensive comparing to ordinary school. Because of its service is home based, there is no teacher need, just mom can do. or daddy.

Diagnostic test - P1000
Family registration fee - P14000
Registration fee per student - P2500
Yearly tuition fee - it varies depends on the grade of the students. But pre school was almost P3000.
Here is weird part for me, the family registration fee. Even though I decide to register only my son, we need to pay family registration fee first and after that, I can register my son to the school with another charge of P2500.

And other charges for textbooks and materials.(US version is more expensive than local one)

I just tried to recall my memory last Sunday but the capacity is so small, sorry, I am not sure if the pricing is correct but not too far from my notes.

During on the way going home from the school, my wife and I discussed about it but the decision is not made because it is very important decision for my son and we are afraid of being not socialized if my son study at home for long time, the textbook and manual was so covetable though.

Wikinomics

Wisdom of crowds, collective intelligence, all of these represent the concept of power of gathered knowledge not by professionals, by public, ordinary people like me. It is quite interesting and attractive idea for me since I strongly agree to change our world, society with something powerful which didn't exist before. I guess this will make the change, drive the innovation to the world. But not only the country or society, even in the school or company which we are belong to. That is the reason why I am interested it and think how to apply this concept to us. I am actually started some experiment already at my work to use collective intelligence and if it can really work in reality.
This idea is already a bit old one since it is introduced at 2007, and world has been changed a lot from that time.There are already so many things appeared and technology is developing day by day. However, I am sure still this concept and idea will lead the people and business how to change and act, probably mixed with other technology or new concept. We need to contemplate what has been done, and what is going to happen related this idea.

SCORE THE GOALS

10 INTERNATIONAL FOOTBALL STARTS ARE MISSING AT SEA!

Luis Figo, Roberto Baggio, Ronaldo, Patrick Vieira, Micheal Ballack, Emmanuel Adebayor, Didier Drogba, 

Raul, Zinedine Zidane, Iker Casillas(10 UN Goodwill Ambassadors) are shipwrecked on an island.

While waiting the rescue, to survive, they build a team and encounter basic life issues which is also the main subjects in MDGs.

This comic introduces UN's MDGs main idea and the way how to relate in reality.

Let us see!

Score the goals 

source : United Nations Sport for Development and Peace

Millennium Development Goals

UN Millennium Development Goals
We can not see these matters around us. 
Because we don't want to see or know these difficult issues particularly the rich.
But definitely it's the problem of our neighbor or friends. We can not hide or avoid it. 
We need to encounter and tackle with it. It's all about our life.
The more we know, be interested, the more we have solutions.


I'm going to study and report each section of MDGS in detail.

Vision

Vision statement

We are learning about our life to help people around us.

We are acting, performing, not just thinking and talking. To effect something.

We are pursuing to be right.

Dec. 15. 2010