Challenge

Our client - an EU 2.2bn global fiber-based materials company - was suffering from declining market share in its core surgical gowns and drapes market. To recover, it sensed growth potential in a new market segment characterised by particular types of surgical procedures. It asked Umio to perform a detailed global strategic market assessment of this segment and to help formulate its growth strategy and value-proposition, as well as its execution plan.

What we Did

In a project lasting less than two months, first, we looked in depth at the demand-side of the gowns and drapes market. We interviewed leading surgeons to learn about current practice and trends in certain procedures and concurrently, built a detailed global picture of procedure-specific volumes, forecasts to 2020, use contexts, risks, infection rates and technology developments. We then mapped onto this a full assessment of competitive and customer strategies and product portfolios, current and forecast geographical market penetration rates and growth-innovation drivers such as total cost of use and single- versus re-usable dynamics. This revealed clear opportunities for improvements in product performance, targeting specific surgical contexts and risks. We shaped these opportunities into a value-proposition and growth strategy for our client to exploit, matched to their technological and production capabilities. Finally, we created strategic capabilty themes and guided our client to specifying detailed actions for executing the strategy. 

The Outcome

Our client now has a clear strategy and value-proposition along with a full market value justification for shifting resources and developing its market, technological, production and sales capability to address the new, attractive growth segment.