Lifeline Systems, Inc. (A)

Lifeline Systems provides emergency response equipment to the elderly who live at home. The company uses local hospitals to market, sell, and install these units in homes, while the hospital monitors and calls for aid to respond to emergency calls from the elderly subscribers. After serious performance problems due to ill-advised diversification strategies, the new CEO, Ron Feinstein, turns the company around by focusing on both hardware and service. Lifeline focuses on supporting the channel and takes over the monitoring service, which becomes the growth business. A rewritten version of an earlier case.