Medical Device Link.

COVER STORY

In the late 1990s, while the diagnostic imaging market was expanding at a clip of about 10% each year, growth at Toshiba America Medical Systems Inc. (Tustin, CA) was stagnant. The company was losing customers as fast as it was adding them. To understand the reasons why, the company's leaders implemented a new formal research process—and were horrified to learn the results. Customers were not at all happy with the company's performance.

For Toshiba, the key lesson that emerged during the research process was that what customers value seemed to be different from what the company and its employees believed they value. Toshiba determined that the benchmarks the company had used to establish success were not the benchmarks that customers most appreciated. As a result, customer dissatisfaction permeated all areas of the company's performance.

(click to enlarge) In an MD Buyline report on major medical imaging technology companies, Toshiba America Medical Systems Inc. was ranked among the top three companies in seven of eight segments. Source: MD Buyline, January 2007.

Following these discoveries, Toshiba's executive team began developing a philosophy and programs to support the company's drive to develop and maintain long-term customer-focused relationships. The company consolidated its research activities and launched a new centralized, formal survey and response process.

Then Toshiba faced an even more significant challenge: the cultural change required for success. Much of the company's work force found it difficult to embrace the idea of ongoing solicitation of customer feedback as a positive step toward companywide improvement. At first, the honest feedback seemed to spawn only finger-pointing and blame for things gone wrong. In fact, company executives estimate that it took nearly two years of focused effort to reshape Toshiba's corporate culture into one that accepts missteps as opportunities for improvement.

The cultural transition gradually took root, and Toshiba began to see increased market share. Since that time, the company has more than doubled its annual sales to about $700 million. Today the company is ranked number one in many of the product categories in which it competes, and its efforts to reform its corporate culture have catapulted Toshiba from last in the imaging sector to first, in both growth and user satisfaction ratings.

As of January 2007, an MD Buyline report on medical imaging technology companies placed Toshiba first in the computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance (MR), nuclear medicine, cardiac ultrasound, cardiac catheterization and special procedures angio, and diagnostic ultrasound segments. The report ranked Toshiba in the top three in seven of eight segments in which the company offers products, including the radiographic, radio-frequency, and cardiac catheterization segments. The results were based on ratings in performance, reliability, applications training, and service repair quality (see figure).

In December 2006, research and consulting firm KLAS Enterprises LLC ranked Toshiba's Aquilion CT and Vantage MR systems as Best in KLAS—placing them at the top of the CT and MR segments in overall ratings.