2018: A Year of Customer-Centric Initiatives
We are nearing the closure of another exciting year of business at Skanray. Some of the new initiatives which were introduced at the beginning of the year have started yielding positive results. The R&D, sales, marketing and service teams have geared up for an even bigger year in 2018 with a large number of customer-centric initiatives.
The integration exercise of some of the recent acquisitions have been very smooth and complete. Cardia International, a Denmark headquartered automated external defibrillator (AED) company was acquired in 2016. The CE-marked CardiAid AED is currently being marketed in over 50 countries across the world. Expansion of the geographical footprint to 80 countries is high on agenda for this year. As part of operational consolidation, the manufacturing activities are being optimized in Europe and India. With a greater focus on penetrating the Asian and South American markets, we are exploring partnerships with global facility management companies with innovative business models. The AED technology has also seen an upgrade with remote monitoring facility – a tool for monitoring the health of the AED with battery charge, geo-location and last charge status, helping us to ensure that the installed units are functional throughout and available for application at all times.
On the domestic front, a lot of efforts have gone in optimization of our field resources for a greater and quicker reach in the target markets. A new set of digital technologies have been introduced to ensure quicker communication to our customers on sales and service fronts. The service team has been reinforced with additional engineers in line with our plans to be the benchmark of service deliveries in the industry. The clinical application team has received a boost with additional experienced biomedical engineers joining the team expanding the geographical scope.
The forthcoming year will be very busy for the product teams as a range of new products are slated to be introduced in radiology and critical care. Our engineers in Italy have been working on a new-to-the-world trauma CT for the past few years and we will be able to bring it to market in the second half of this year. This new product has generated abundant interest amongst the medical fraternity and we hope to capitalize on this and demonstrate the excellent utility of this product to the clinicians. Our recent entry into the veterinary market has been extremely positive and we plan to add couple of more products to expand the portfolio in this fast-growing segment.
Skanray occupies one of the top spots in the global medical equipment industry. With 750 healthcare professionals and 200 dedicated R&D engineers, Skanray has successfully launched several CE marked and USFDA products in the international markets. We will leverage our partner and complement model to partner with other global MedTech companies. Aggressiveness in the domestic market, strategic partnerships in the export markets, and launch of innovative products are expected to contribute maximum to the growth in 2018.
Skanray already has set-up manufacturing and R&D units in Bangalore, Bologna, Sao Paulo, and Mysore with Florida and Suzhou R&D units in the pipeline. With an installed base presence in more than 80 countries and a favorable environment to scale up our operations, we anticipate an extraordinary year and are prepared for exciting times in our journey to transform into one of the finest medical technologies brands in the world.
