A realistic view of Applied

Discussion in 'Applied Medical' started by Anonymous, Aug 16, 2014 at 11:25 AM.

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  1. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    First I will start off by saying I am not pro-Applied or anti-Applied. I am merely here to give a realistic perspective of Applied. I will break it down into various parts and then people can at least see what I feel is a realistic view of the company. I left in the past 4 months so this is a pretty recent view of what I saw

    Management:
    First I will start off saying management has done an exceptional job to figure out well ahead of competitors Covidien and Ethicon that trocars, bags, clip appliers, etc. will be seen as commodities and that things are moving away from allowing doctors to choose and moving to hospitals deciding what is used. This is where things are going and I commend them for seeing this. It is how they have captured such great market share so fast. If they ever get energy they will capture a greater amount of market share because of the significant cost savings.
    As far as field managers go it is like most companies. There are some District Managers and Zone Managers that have no business being in the roles they are in. They have no clue what they are doing. There are some very good ones. It just depends on where you are and who your manager will be. I wish I could help paint a better picture, but that is the reality. Above the 2 gentlemen that run sales the upper-upper management is run by people who think they know an ounce about sales, but are more tailored for engineering than sales. When I discuss the comp plan and products this should make more sense.
    Products:
    They have some very good products and some products that are not so good. Gel, bags, and Alexis are very good products. Trocars are neither bad nor good, they simply are acceptable and get the job done. 5mm clip applier is terrible. Most doctors hate it, it misfires way more than it should and it is clunky. Across the nation doctors have proven (by what they use) that they do not need a 10mm clip delivered in a 5mm solution. To try and sell that they can get a 10mm clip with a 5mm applier is pointless since they don’t want it or need it. Where it can be sold like that is when you come across a physician who uses a 10 and when asked why, he states he feels more comfortable with a bigger, stronger clip. That is a great target for the 5mm clip applier, but those a few and far between. Almost every doctor would tell you that if he wanted a bigger stronger clip he would use a 10mm clip applier. If Applied is so vertically integrated then they should make the changes that allow for a less clunkier delivery system. That is what the market wants. Vertically integrated companies should be able to make that change easily.
    Comp Plan:
    While I would agree that if you look at a successful Applied rep and a successful Ethicon rep the comp overall for the year is only slightly less the problem occurs with the comp plan itself. You can tell no person ever involved in sales came up with this. It is a mess. At not time could any rep tell you about what they are going to make for the quarter. You have all these categories. If you sell product A you get 28%, product B 23%, but if you bundle them you get 18%, and if it goes out on a Tuesday then it is 12%, but if it is the third Tuesday then it is 16%, but only if the sun is still up when it ships. It literally is that complicated. Almost every other company simply pays by a table such as 100% of quota and you get 100% of commission, 90% of quota and you get 80% of commission, etc. The other way would be you get XX% of existing business and XX % (higher amount) of new business. It is an absolute joke that you can have two people hit quota (100% each) and one can make $8000 per quarter and the other $18,000 per quarter. From my understanding of the specialists they aren’t even close to hitting what they were told comp would be. Pretty much every specialist is drastically underpaid from what I hear.

    Career Path:
    This is where I think Applied does a pretty good job. If you want to move around in the organization or move up they do a pretty decent job of promoting within. Not much to say here beyond that.

    Business Model:
    I truly believe the business model is to bring in a rep in a struggling territory. They build it up over the next 12-24 months. It peaks from a growth standpoint so the rep starts to lose income exponentially. They leave, the territory falls and they rinse and repeat. They end up bringing someone in for far cheaper and even though business is lost the reduction in having to pay the new employee balances it out.

    What Applied seems like to me is a manufacturing and distribution company that happens to have a sales force.
     

  2. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    True. Definitely an engineering company first and sales company second (or even third), thats for sure. Regarding the comp plan, it's arguably the worst, most convulited in the med device industry. I worked here about a year ago and came from one of the "big guys" and it's definitely screwed up. I had reps equal with me sitting on their ass or going fishing 3 days a week because they stepped in shit and landed a conversion or 2 so they had that huge yr over yr growth that allowed them to get a fat paycheck the next 4 qtrs. meanwhile I was hustling and getting little wins here and there, but I literally got $2,000 for the ENTIRE QTR. it's not fair and needs to be revamped. Also, they should at least consider giving a guarantee or draw to anyone coming in who has an underperforming territory. When I asked my DM, he literally laughed at me and said "Applied doesnt do that." I knew at that point I wasnt going to be there long.
     
  3. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    The only 'Team Members' who do well are family members (exclude owners daughter, she is here to have built in freinds) and married in or very very close friends of the family. The rest of us are here to make them rich. I would give my name but i still work here to pay my bills while I look elsewhere.
     
  4. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    An engineering company...LLLLLOOOOOOOLLLLLLL.

    Trocars and what else, exactly? How's Voyant coming along? Any day now, right? Empty pipeline, half-commitment to innovation and no corporate vision aside from what there already is.
     
  5. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Feeling your frustrations but as I kick the dust off my boots and sit at the table to rest my weary legs it appears that I have two choices in front of me. Yesterday during my neighborhood magic show I was asked to pull a rabbit out of a hat. Unfortunately I don’t have a rabbit only a squirrel and oddly enough I don’t have a hat I have a bandanna so I’m sure that you can imagine how that went. Before me on the table is the delicious Kentucky Fried Chicken extra crispy batch of moist chicken parts and Popeye’s Louisiana home made morsels of goodness. Which is better? Its hard to tell; they both have their own flavors that permeate the room and fill my belly and leave me satisfied. The point of this is simple I need my drive paved but aint got no money to cover the costs meanwhile chicken is cheap and always taste good when someone else makes it.

    This absurdum is sort of the reason why Applied Medical wins business at a hospital.
     
  6. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Or they're just the cheapest around and hospitals stopped caring about their patients
     
  7. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    OP here. Statements like these are ridiculous. All it does is make you look petty. There is nothing wrong with Applied's products from a clinical standpoint. You could turn this statement around and say if Ethicon cared about there patient they would lower their prices for the hospitals. That would also be an ignorant statement.
     
  8. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    How do you justify the other 15 dozen threads/comments on this board? It seems to be a common theme and surely not the opinion of one
     
  9. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    15 dozen doesn't mean 15 dozen people. Read through them again. They're all the same tone.....same handfull of people who didn't like it here.
     
  10. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    OP again. What I would say is that most of the comments seem to be geared towards the company and that the products are not as nice as some of the other companies. That is a big difference in "may cause harm to a patient" or "are bad clinically" "or bad for the patient". Using an Applied trocar should not cause more concern that the operation may fail.
     
  11. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Except for comedy relief this particular thread is sterile lacking the depth that real sales managers provide. Neutral is not the best explanation to define Applied Medical products. When the Gelport was first released it innovated the field of abdominal surgery. The neutrality of a product that literally revolutionized the laparoscopic surgical field will never be considered flat. I would rather contend that it is your mindset of being superficially deep as the clothes that you wear is the realistic view from my perspective and I am not hovering above. New sales reps fall into that category when they are afraid of the unknown and too egotistical to look straightforward and not nose up. At times it is to be expected and when they wind up freezing in the middle of a product trial or case then it is also the responsibility of their superiors to pull them through the thick of things. That is exactly the reason that a management structure is set in place to begin with. Applied Medicals genius is that they decided as a small business to expand while maintaining control over production. They created products that can be considered commodities and only through experience in the operating room observing skilled surgeons in their field could a company that is privately owned transform its product line to better suit the surgeons. What better way for a company to expand than with non-emotion products to accompany a product that is as personal as the Gelport? If hospitals are trying to meet cost saving initiative goals then they look to Applied within their product categories. There are issues within this company but my contention is that your comments aren’t real and we as sales managers are.
     
  12. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest


    Guess you didn't read. If you notice I said Gel, Bags, and Alexis are very good products so your second sentence of "Neutral is not the best explanation to define Applied Medical products." makes no sense since I absolutely did not say that gel, bags, and alexis were "neutral". Everything else is gibberish.
     
  13. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Someone doesn't like criticism
     
  14. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    I don't mind criticism at all, but at least learn to read. If you are going to say that someone called products neutral then make sure they said it. You used Gelpoint as an example when I specifically said Gel were "very good products."

    So it isn't that I don't like criticism. I just prefer reading comprehension.
     
  15. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Walk away from this one pal there's nothing that you can say that will make a difference.
     
  16. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    You must brush up on your own comprehension skills and understanding of company history. Giving an explanation of the single product that grave credence to Applied Medical isn't talking about product neutrality rather why Applied Medical products aren't neutral. The comprehension issue if you want to get lost in the detail is that Gel is general. Gelport, Gelport Balloon Trocar, Gelpoint, Gelpath can you understand your general error? I wasn't pointing that out I was explaining how there is nothing neutral with Applied and neutral is only a term used to put in place of acceptable. For surgeons that were trained and associated with larger companies acceptable means that the products work and they would agree to use the product. Acidic anger only leads you to betray yourself and your teammates that surround you.
     
  17. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    I'm going to put an end to this board once and for all. I think I read somewhere else that this company hasn't changed in years. That goes for management and its products. Can someone please tell me what NEW (and innovative) products Applied has come out with in the past 5 years? I'm not talking about a friggin clip applier that has been copied (I mean slightly changed) or the Ortho Alexis which is nothing more than your regular Alexis which has been indicated for a new surgery and is a different color/material. Even your silly balloon trocars and FiOS is antiquated technology you tried to sell but were unsuccessful. Can someone PLEASE tell me if your company has ever invented/produced ANYTHING new in the past decade? This is a Mickey Mouse company, always has been, always will be. Go home.
     
  18. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Uh WTF is this gibberish. I'll put it in simple terms. Gelport is a very good product. Gelpoint is a very good product. Gelpath is a very good product. Or in other words Gel are very good products. Oh wait I said that in my very first post. I want to congratulate you on getting this far in life. With the drivel you post and the incoherent sentences I am amazed at your ability to even get out of the house in the morning.
     
  19. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Thank you oh wise one for putting an end to this board based on something you think you read somewhere. God you're a friggin genius!
     
  20. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Hey Willow simmer down and in answer to your question the Gelpoint is the best product that Applied Medical has released in the past couple of years. Also Gelpath is awful and I would only recommend it for people that I don't like. If you want results look at the Gelpoint video, I once observed a surgeon perform a LAR with the end result being a 3cm umbilical defect. That is proof of a products viability.