Becton Dickinson & Company: VACUTAINER  Systems Division (Condensed)

V. Kasturi  Rangan; Frank V. Cespedes

Case | HBS Case Collection | October 1991 (Revised August 2000)

Becton Dickinson & Company: VACUTAINER Systems Division (Condensed)

by V. Kasturi Rangan and Frank V. Cespedes

Abstract

Becton Dickinson, a phenomenally successful company with an 80% market share in the blood collection needles and syringes market faces a change in the customer buying environment (cost containment pressures at hospitals). This forces a reevaluation of the company's highly successful product policy and channel strategy. One of the company's largest customers threatens to leave them for refusing their "low-price" request. It is obvious to students that giving in to this customer's threat would compromise the company's "value-added" thrust, yet the potential business at stake makes it difficult to be inflexible.

Keywords: Business Divisions; Customer Satisfaction; Demand and Consumers; Market Participation; Distribution Channels; Success; Corporate Strategy; Value Creation; Health Industry;

Format: Print

17 pages

Educators Purchase

Citation:

Rangan, V. Kasturi, and Frank V. Cespedes. "Becton Dickinson & Company: VACUTAINER Systems Division (Condensed)." Harvard Business School Case 592-037, October 1991. (Revised August 2000.)

Last Mile Health is a non-profit organization that focuses on recruiting and training community health workers to reach remote rural communities with basic health services. Founded by Raj Panjabi, a Liberian who immigrated with his family to the United States during the Liberian Civil War, the case traces the founding and early years of Last Mile Health, before the organization is faced with a choice during the Ebola outbreak in 2014: should they pursue a significant amount of new funding to expand into other areas, or should they stay focused on training community health workers.

The case describes the 25-year transformation of Peabody Essex Museum, which was created in 1993 by the merger of two sub-scale predecessor cultural institutions, operating since 1799, in Salem, Massachusetts. Dan Monroe, its founding CEO, began a process of building the institution, which, when he arrived, had a budget of $3 million and an endowment of $23 million in 1993, as compared to a budget of $33 million and an endowment of $650 million in 2018. Monroe made changes in practically every aspect of the museum’s operations as PEM broke into the ranks of the top 15 museums in the U.S. All of this was happening at a time when museums in general had lost some 20% in visitation as a result of significant shifts in population demographics and what they understood by “cultural experience.” As Dan Monroe handed off the reins of an institution that had successfully run counter to trend to his successor in 2019, the trustees of the museum and its new CEO faced the challenge of how to keep the positive momentum going—and how potentially to reinvent PEM again for a rapidly changing world.

Faculty & Research

Becton Dickinson & Company: VACUTAINER Systems Division (Condensed)

Abstract

Citation:

About the Authors

More from these Authors