Sunrise consolidates sales
By HME News Staff
Updated Tue August 31, 2004
LONGMONT, Colo. - Two summers after Sunrise Medical carved its sales force into specialty groups that called exclusively on sleep labs, rehab centers and HME suppliers, the medical equipment manufacturer has reverted to its previous sales strategy.
In February, the company dismantled its specialty groups and reconfigured sales territories, leaving one rep responsible for call points in the lab, in the rehab center and at the HME supplier.
“We now have the ability to use the whole force as opposed to before when we only had x for rehab and y for sleep,” said Carey Winkel, president of commercial operations in North America for Sunrise Medical. “Now I can tap on any resource across the country and hit them from a geography point of view where we need to hit them.”
In June 2002, Sunrise dedicated 16 reps to the sleep labs and 30 reps to rehab centers, believing that sleep techs and rehab tech suppliers would help drive business for DeVilbiss and Quickie. While the strategy is often quite successful, it's also expensive and depletes the ability to cover large swaths of territory.
The sales reorganization has expanded the sales force capacity by 15-20%, according to Winkel.
“I know we haven't touched everybody, but we certainly have improved the penetration,” she said.
Comments