The Partnership Puzzle

The Partnership Puzzle

The fourth annual MPO Symposium returns to the Boston area with a formula for improved outsourcing strategies on the agenda.

MPO Staff Report

American entrepreneur, tech tycoon and philanthropist Bill Gates once said that part of his success in founding Microsoft came as a result of the business relationships he formed along the way.
“Our success has really been based on partnerships from the very beginning,” the multi-billionaire said.
Success seldom happens in isolation, as Gates pointed out. And in a world where business hurdles seem to be more plentiful, whom you know (an old adage often overlooked), can become more important than what you know.

This year’s Medical Product Outsourcing (MPO) Symposium will tackle some of those important partnership issues. After all, successful outsourcing is a study in effective relationship building. The fourth annual event will return to The Conference Center at Waltham Woods in Waltham, Mass., Nov. 3-4. This year, the theme of the day-and-a-half event is exploring enterprise-wide outsourcing strategies for improved outcomes.

For the past four years, the MPO Symposium consistently has delivered an unparalleled speaker faculty and networking opportunities. Each session will examine and discuss the obstacles and opportunities medical technology manufacturers—OEMs and suppliers alike—face within their organizations and in their strategic partnerships.

The event targets medical device professionals in areas such as supply chain management, quality assurance and control, purchasing and procurement, materials management, strategic sourcing, operations, and marketing.

The conference kicks off with a topic designed to help medical device professionals rethink their internal workflow. Titled “Breaking the Barriers of Organizational Silos” and presented by Julia S. Rasor, a medical device strategist, entrepreneur and founder of Rasor Consulting Group, the keynote will provide strategies to break down the barriers between product development and manufacturing in order to improve product development time and create a more collaborative and efficient environment.
Attendees also will hear from Steve McKenna, senior quality manager, corporate alliance quality management, for Boston Scientific. McKenna will outline the do’s and don’ts of evaluating supplier quality during outsourcing decision making. Learn how OEMs are vetting prospective partners and keeping their preferred supplier lists lean.

As in years past, the speaker faculty for MPO Symposium 2010 comprises expert consultants, medical device manufacturers, academics and suppliers. A sampling of conference topics include:

• Managing intellectual property in an academic/entrepreneurial environment;
• Evaluating supplier quality and assessing the “health” of your vendors;
• Debating open-book pricing, an OEM and supplier panel with audience participation; and
• Mitigating risk while outsourcing offshore.

New to the symposium this year is the revelation of results of the latest Direct Material Sourcing Survey of the medical device and diagnostics markets conducted by PRTM, a global operational strategy, supply chain and product innovation consulting firm. The presentation—which will take place on the second day—will provide executives with tips for setting and achieving best-in-class cost reduction for materials sourcing, direct material sourcing data, and benchmarks operations executives can use when establishing annual cost reduction targets.

For more on conference sessions, speakers, the agenda and to register, turn to pages 84-87.
As Donald Trump, another famous—or perhaps infamous—American entrepreneur once said, “Watch, listen and learn. You can’t know it all yourself. Anyone who thinks they do is destined for mediocrity.”