How we helped Vocera demonstrate their authentic economic value and win big deals

Follow the Money.

The Challenge

Vocera, a leading clinical communications platform that enhances workflows efficiencies, and patient safety for nearly 1,500 hospitals and health systems worldwide, was rapidly becoming the victim of its own early success. Since launching its first device in 2000, the technology was quickly adopted to improve communication across hospital protocols and teams; but, as technology evolved and competition grew, Vocera soon realized it would have to update its messaging if it wanted to continue capturing the attention of the hospital and health system C-suite.

Vocera understood that in order to acquire new business, it would need a new way to convey its unique value proposition that could resonate broadly with a greater number of prospect stakeholders. Whereas early on, it was relatively easy to earn buy-in from smaller clinical teams or departments, Vocera was now having to sell to steering committees at the enterprise level that were weighing bigger budgetary and impact decisions.

The team knew that to make the greatest impression, they would need to be able to quantify their tools’ financial impact across an organization. To better share their economic impact story with hospitals and health systems across the country, the organization turned to Sage Growth Partners.

Goals

Induce greater market demand for Vocera’s technology among hospitals and health system C-suite

Craft a compelling value story based on real-world factors and use cases that would be customizable for individual prospects and key stakeholders

Acquire more new business for the market leader

The Work

Discovery & Research

Sage conducted a thorough analysis of the impact of suboptimal communication between and among hospital staff, both clinical and administrative. The research included:

In-depth Interviews (IDIs): Sage conducted in depth interviews with Vocera business leaders, customers and blinded voice of market key opinion leaders. These interviews allowed Sage and Vocera to develop the right economic hypotheses from which to ground the economic value model.
Secondary research: Sage began to research leading factors that led to communication inefficiencies and the impact those inefficiencies have on a hospital.

Economic value calculator

Founded in the research, Sage built a dynamic tool that clearly articulates the cost of suboptimal communications in the hospital and health system and illustrates the economic impact of streamlining communications. These benefits include but are not limited to:

Improved efficiency in the ED and inpatient floors
Time savings across clinical and administrative staff
Improved patient and staff safety

The economic model accounts for both public and system-specific metrics to help clearly articulate ROI, and which could be used to accelerate the sales process.

Articulating ROI with Vocera’s economic value calculator

With the economic value calculator, the Vocera team now comes prepared with a value story to every big meeting with a prospect. To identify ROI, the Vocera team enters three pieces of publicly available information into the tool:

Total number of beds
Total number of discharges per year
Total number of ED visits per year

The tool uses the inputs to calculate the total economic impact based on published industry averages. To further refine the value story, Vocera can collect additional prospect-specific metrics around average length of stay, staffing costs and ratios, and other key performance metrics.

Work Samples

Video Case Study

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