Are you kidding me MPO!?!

After being challenged by the MPO executive team regarding the growth or stagnation of my business, I was pleasantly surprised to see a wonderful email this morning detailing how the product marketing team is not going to be able to deliver 3 specific and "novel" instruments for the launch of our new cup. Note to John and Aurelio - If you are going to press for the distributors to sell more product, if you are going to question their belief in a the company and it's leadership, if I am going to walk away wondering if I am doing a good job, don't you think you should be able to deliver on the biggest product release in several years?
Yes - there is a solution in the meantime, but it is more costly to me and the hospital. Who picks up the shipping on those extra sets, who reimburses the hospital for additional trays in the OR? This is hysterical! Thank you MPO for confirming what I already knew - I do run a good business, I do have solid relationships that I will continue to protect, and I am correct in not proactively pushing MPO product because I am not confident that the team is professional enough to deliver what they promise. Surgeons use MPO products because I have been working with them for years, it's a relationship driven business that the executive team obviously refuses to understand or recognize. Trust is earned and they have yet to earn my trust. It's a shame that the MicroPort Scientific is not more involved in this project. This business was salvageable 18 months ago but unfortunately this is just another example of why it can't be saved.... Great job team!

 

trust me my friend the grass in not much greener with any of the other companies either. I work for a competitor and I was about to convert a surgeon that did 600 knees a year and my company did not want to make a custom tibial cutting guide for him.

 

In over 20+'years of orthopedic sales with 2 different companies one thing is for certain. When corporate promises you something add at least a year before its in circulation.

 

corporate is losing it ..... how does a goof like Gerry savage become and Eastern Regional sales manager for them. he was a bust and a jerk at ConforMIS....... tried to screw sales reps and was no support............

 

And it keeps getting better each day. Ron W quit this week so now we don't have a Sales Leader in the middle of the US and there is NO backup plan. I imagine he got tired of EM going around him trying to position himself for a RVP role that shouldn't ever happen. If JM and AS allow that to happen - abandon ship! Wonder what Eric does if he doesn't get that role. This could get even more comical very soon.......

 

Are you sure Ron quit? He's been planning to retire for a while, but was persuaded to stay for a while to groom/mentor EM for RVP role.

 

I heard that too - straight from RW - it was his choice and they are trying to convince him to stay.

 

I don't think RW quit. He has been traveling around trying to get reps to bring their relationships to Microport

 

You are right, he is still talking to reps but he is no longer an MPO employee. JM sent out a heartfelt email discussing his departure. Hopefully we get the same e-mail announcing JM and AS's departure in the near future. Adding further insult to injury, the liner to the new cup seems to be failing.... What? The liner to the new cup that is going to re-energize our business is failing...... Oh my, Oh my, what else could go wrong?

If this business was a restaurant, nobody would come back for a 2nd meal.

 

So the cup is failing and now John, Aurelio and the rest of the management team are acknowledging it - Only took 6 months. So what happens now??? What happens to the product that we really need - Evolution Revision kit. Does that get thrown back farther on the priority list, or do you re-engineer the cup? Essentially, MPO is a company without a full Hip or Knee product line... Really can't sell the Hip because of this new cup issue and you still don't have a full Knee offering. Sure makes it easy to represent and sell the MPO brand! Think about this - there were issues when MPO bought this business from Wright, the biggest one was addressing Evolution Revisions. How has that issue been addressed in 4 years??? Plain and simple - it hasn't and that is the biggest revenue opportunity for the entire sales team nationwide. My sales people lose every revision case because we do not have a solution. In many cases I can't get our Knee into a hospital because we don't have a revision offering. Isn't the number of TKA's supposed to grow by some astronomical % in the next 10 years? And you guys are pushing SuperPath and a new cup as the #1 priority.

Bottom Line - the decisions that John and Aurelio have made have damaged this company beyond repair!
Their decisions have jeopardized the stability of the company which jeopardizes all of the distributor businesses as well as all of the employees of MicroPort in Arlington TN. Thousands of people are effected by these two egomaniacs who don't know how to manage people, have made several extremely poor operational decisions (moving the marketing and engineering folks to Boston being a great example) and continue to drive away the most talented and experienced employees who might have been able to fix this company before it was a lost cause.

Nice job guys!

 

They begged RW to stay but he quit anyway.

 

To the gentleman with the custom tibial jig issue. There are literally 100’s of custom surgical instrument company’s throughout the US. They can take a laser scan on the desired instrument to be replicated and copy/produce it exactly the way he likes it. If the doctor does 600 knees a year, then he would probably need 4-5 of them. They probably would cost 2k each if you could utilize part of the current MPO tibial jig. So 10k lets say. So your breakeven/ROI would be about 4-6 weeks after the doctor converted . This is a simple problem to solve. Go do it and get the business. If you need help finding tbe closest custom surgical instrument shop, go to www.google.com on your computer and search “custom surgical instrument shop near me”

 

Still needing the revision fix to push the knee sales. What’s being done to address?