An alliance for future security, 11/07/2006
Bauerfeind AG, one of the leading producers of compression stockings, supports, orthoses, orthopedic insoles and prosthetics, offered the medical retail trade in Germany an alliance for future security. The basis for this cooperation is a quality partnership. During the 1st Bauerfeind branch forum on October 11 in Düsseldorf in which approx. 400 medical retail owners participated, the Bauerfeind board introduced the key points of the quality partner program.
The catalyst for the current initiative of the Thuringen family-run company was the ever increasing price competition in the medical branches and the demands of the healthcare market in the future. Bauerfeind sees it as their responsibility as a market leader not only to prepare the company itself for the challenges. Bauerfeind has also invited retailers that are essential partners to join them on the way to quality leadership. Only the quality of the products and the quality of the retailer’s advice and service guarantees the patient the best possible, medically and technically advanced care in the future, said President and CEO Hans B. Bauerfeind in his greeting with participants the night before the branch forum. He thereby gave a clear commitment to retail as Bauerfeind’s business partner in the future.
To be as independent as possible from the general conditions that the health policies allow must now be the goal, Manfred Schmidt, chairman of the Genf brand institute and guest speaker at the branch forum told the participants. In his speech he focused on the quickly declining prices that the structures of the medical branches are about to destroy. Schmidt showed the only way out of this crisis: the path of quality leadership that Bauerfeind also follows.
With branded products and a comprehensive advice and service plan the high-quality care of patients can be achieved in the future as well – if the patient takes on a greater portion of the costs for his care. In his speech, Prof. Dr. Bernd Raffelhüschen, finance professor at the Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, clearly stated that this would be necessary to sustain compulsory health insurance. Due to a generational balance he predicted co-pays for compulsory health insurance in amounts of more than 30 percent. Even more drastic is the amount needed to close the so-called sustainability gap: seven billion euros, five times today’s state deficit! This gap diverges between the contributions/taxes, that all of the people who are alive in 2004 must pay until the end of their lives and the services (retirement, health care) that must be maintained by this system.
In the opinion of Prof. Dr. Hans-Jörg Bullinger, President of the Fraunhof Society and member of the “Committee for Innovation and Growth,” to secure Germany’s work and welfare it is important to win over the advisory board of the Federal Chancellor through innovation. In his speech, “The Strongest Strengths”, Bullinger illustrated to the retailers how important the co-pay is to companies that want to offer advances in Germany, produce products in Germany and bring them to the market. Bauerfeind is among these companies.
CEO Hans B. Bauerfeind reminded everyone in his opening words that only companies who invest in research and development are the ideal partners for the retail trade. Looking towards the future, in which only the best will remain, he advised “anyone, who has confidence in himself, should now be preparing for this market development.”
Bauerfeind has been preparing – for a new dimension of competition, a competition for the attention of the patient. The more a patient in the future has to pay for their healthcare, the more he becomes a customer and therefore more critical. The retailers that enter a partnership with Bauerfeind have, with the new program, the means and possibilities to withstand the competition. The Bauerfeind quality partner agreement is both the basis for cooperation and a good-will gesture.
The principal is called “Effort for Reward.” Naturally Bauerfeind has always supported its business partners with marketing tools, product training, product display decor and physician relations. Up until now, all of these supporting measures and campaigns have not built on each other. It is a novelty in this branch that Bauerfeind offers bonuses to participants in products and sales training, shared communication methods and appropriate product presentation – and it is a quantitative bonus that is based on the total sales of a store for the year, particularly sales of Bauerfeind’s core products.
Dr. Roland Schnurpfeil, Central Branch Director Marketing/Communications with Bauerfeind, presented the participants with the exact dates of the new bonus system. So there is a bonus for all retailers that meet the determined conditions (based on overall sales, the sales of core assortment products and goal achievement) and as an exclusive Bauerfeind quality partner (based on sales of Bauerfeind’s core assortment, quality performance in product and sales training, shared communication methods and appropriate presentation of the Bauerfeind assortment.)
Thomas Bauerfeind, International Sales Director, and Michael Ullrich, Germany Sales Director, talked in detail about the individual building blocks of the program and gave some concrete examples regarding the principal of “Effort for Reward.” One of the most important points that were discussed: The quality partner program is open to all retailers – regardless of the size of the company, the number of employees and the sales. It is available to all retailers who are business-savvy, want to have trained personnel, provide high-quality care and fully-document care for physicians, providers and patients.
Bauerfeind is going to develop the branch forum into a communications platform for retail in the next few years. Similar to the initial presentation this year they want to have high-level speakers talk about current developments in the health care market, concentrating on medical products. To be informed of current events and introduce newly acquired findings to retail stores as well as incorporating them into strategic planning –is the way for retailers as well as Bauerfeind, as a manufacturer the market, to actively and, most importantly, cooperatively influence the market in the future.
