The in-class simulation with the case of surgical robotics provided me with significant knowledge and first-hand experience of the importance of selecting the right strategic goals for the business. Furthermore, the simulation also allowed me to experience the impact of the proper assessment of the company’s characteristics and information. Lastly, the simulation results provided me with an opportunity to observe the influence of decisions made by other students on competitor businesses in the surgical robotics field.
My initial objective in the role of Telkes Medical was to maximize profits and achieve financial stability for the company. As part of Health Corporation, which prioritizes the minimally invasive surgery business, Telkes Medical’s primary goals are to generate profits for the parent company and develop a robotics instrument integration system for Health Corporation. Therefore, my initial objective in the simulation was to generate profits to provide the financial basis for future development in robotics ventures. To achieve this objective, I initially increased the prices to support the company’s ability to generate more profit in a shorter time period.
With an increased price, I accumulated enough resources to manage further investments in the company’s technological development and research. While the company’s technological development presented my main objective in the simulation, I had to change the objectives with the simulation progression to ensure the basis for the achievement of further objectives. Therefore, I decided to focus on investments in technological development because innovations provide a substantial base for attracting more customers. Moreover, technological innovations present a significant source of competitive advantage in the rapidly developing area of surgical robotics. Therefore, the investments in the technology benefitted the company by justifying the high prices. Thus, I was able to achieve both objectives by correctly assessing the initial conditions and prioritizing profits instead of brand value or the number of customers.
However, after realizing that high prices negatively influenced the company’s market share in robotics, I decided to focus on the objective of gaining profits through an increase in the number of customers. Furthermore, in order to ensure the profits from investment in the technology, I decided to change the price gradually over a long time instead of a one-time price reduction. Moreover, substantial changes in the price can negatively influence the company’s reputation and affect regular customers. As the continued to lower, the target audience of customers continued to grow, positively influencing the company’s market share in surgical robotics.
The simulation presented an important lesson on the system of value propositions and its significant influence on companies’ development and relationships with customers. Even though my initial goal was to maximize the company’s profits, the high price was associated with higher quality in the value position system. Furthermore, investments in the technology allowed justification of the high price and provided support for higher quality value proposition. Lastly, when the price was reduced and became more affordable for more customers, the company was able to maximize its profit, resulting in a high level of brand value. In my opinion, in the early stages of development, the most important metric for companies is profit because it demonstrates the company’s potential more accurately than other metrics.
Lastly, considering the organization of the overall industry, I would suggest organizing the industry with the prevalence of robotic surgery and smaller shares of laparoscopy and open surgery. According to Moawad et al. (2020), robotic surgery proved to be especially effective during the COVID-19 pandemic in conditions of limited hospital resources. Despite their high costs, robotic-assisted surgery systems will become more affordable with time and eventually will become more common than laparoscopy surgery (Longmore et al., 2020). Therefore, the wide implementation of robotic surgery can significantly improve patients’ safety and surgical management in the future.
References
Longmore, S K., Naik, & Gargiulo, G. D. (2020). Laparoscopic robotic surgery: Current perspective and future directions. Robotics, 9(2), 1-22.
Moawad, G. N., Rahman, S., Martino, M. A., & Klebanoff, J. S. (2020). Robotic surgery during the COVID pandemic: Why now and why for the future. Journal of Robotic Surgery, 14, 917-920.