Posted: March 11th, 2015

Opportunities and Challenges Ahead

Opportunities and Challenges Ahead

Coelho had invested his time in multiple trips to Brazil in pursuit of the Olympics telemedicine project.22 He enjoyed full support from the top—Barthelemy,

GlobalMed’s CEO, viewed Brazil as the company’s top priority for emerging market entry. Additionally, the Olympics project had strong internal support among GlobalMed

stakeholders from all key departments, who saw the potential the project offered for expanding the company’s market share and increasing brand awareness. They

recognized that even if GlobalMed were not selected as the pri- mary vendor for the Games, the company would potentially benefit from the increased exposure for

telemedicine.

In spite of the potential upside it offered, the project was complex and vulnerable to risks. The more risks GlobalMed team members could anticipate, the better

prepared they would be for dealing with them if they materialized. As previously mentioned, the Brazilian culture was known for indecisiveness and last-minute de-

cision making. Additionally, Brazil’s equivalent to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), known as ANVISA (Age^ncia Nacional de Vigila^ncia Sanita´ria), imposed

significant regulatory barriers for medical devices. For example, in December 2011, one of GlobalMed’s units, which had been used temporarily on an oil platform, was

detained in Brazilian Customs for five days before it was allowed to be returned to GlobalMed in the U.S. Another significant risk had to do with adoption by

clinicians, who might resist the new technology because it represented a major disruption to traditional healthcare delivery models. There were likely to be many other

challenges, and the project team was in the process of tackling a comprehensive risk assessment.

Case questions:

1.    What are the key success factors for a successful firm like GlobalMed to keep its growth in the international market?

2.  Conduct a SWOT analysis to anlyse the internal and external conditions for GlobalMed to achieve its competitive advantage.