MedTech Benchmarking

Benchmarking Operational Excellence in the MedTech Industry

What is the status of Operational Excellence (OPEX) in the MedTech industry? How does your company compare against competitors? What are the gaps between your performance and that of industry leaders, and what levers can you pull to achieve superior results? Our scientific-backed one-of-a-kind MedTech OPEX Benchmarking jointly developed with Roland Berger and industry peers will provide you with answers! Uncover how you can boost your competitive edge and achieve lasting improvements.
Take part in this unique opportunity and contribute to the advancement of MedTech!

What is it?

As the MedTech industry faces increased cost pressure [1], OPEX becomes imperative. With our MedTech OPEX Benchmarking, companies can not only determine their current status of OPEX but also understand the gaps to their peers and derive the levers for sustainable improvements.

OPEX MedTech Benchmarking Model

Our MedTech OPEX Benchmarking is based on proven industry as well as science-based practices, principles, and philosophies combined in a holistic framework to assess state-of-the-art OPEX in the entire organization (see OPEX MedTech Benchmarking Model). The benchmarking focuses on manufacturing sites (end-to-end within the site) while also covering network and corporate aspects. It spans three levels of information:
  1. Key-Performance-Indicators (KPIs): Hard facts, outcome metrics, to determine the performance of your organization.
  2. Implementation of Excellence Tools and Approaches (Enablers): Assessing the maturity of your organization to understand if your performance is built upon a solid foundation; find out which levers to pull for improving performance.
  3. Structural Factors (Context): A variety of context factors provides more color to the picture; discussions and implications set into context to make more meaningful comparisons.

What are advantages/benefits?

The MedTech OPEX Benchmarking:
  • Is an external perspective
  • Provides a holistic picture of strengths and weaknesses
  • Is data-backed
  • Is practice and science proven
  • Makes meaningful comparisons
  • Provides realistic gaps to real high-performers
  • Gives you the opportunity to derive the right implications for improvements with measurable and sustainable impact

What are the deliverables?

Upon completion of the MedTech OPEX Benchmarking, you will receive a site-specific, individual report (one report per participating site). Each report comprises an extensive performance section, and an in-depth maturity assessment, and many more structural factors to get the full picture. It includes high-performers and peer group median benchmarking values to compare yourself to.
Additional activities, such as an implications workshop, can be organized upon agreement.

How does it work?

You can start your benchmarking any time, with as many sites as you wish. The questionnaire is Excel-based which makes it easily manageable for your organization. You, together with your site(s), will gather the data by yourself while the St.Gallen team provides remote support. The standard process is depicted below.

How was it developed?

Over the course of one year, the St.Gallen team in collaboration with Roland Berger and industry peers developed this unique benchmarking for the MedTech industry. The goal was to create the first dedicated MedTech OPEX Benchmarking in the world and provide the industry with a means to get invaluable insights through comprehensive benchmarking data from operations. Building on the foundation of the renowned St.Gallen Pharma OPEX Benchmarking, the St.Gallen team gathered information through systematic workshops series and interviews with MedTech companies and experts. This fed into the questionnaire which was jointly developed together with Roland Berger’s MedTech experts. Through numerous iterations the benchmarking was honed to be a precise tool in providing meaningful insights for MedTech companies.

Get in touch

Thomas Friedli

Prof. Dr.

Professor of Production Management

ITEM-HSG
Büro 0-236
Dufourstrasse 40a
9000 St. Gallen

Mark Grothkopp

Dr.

Project Leader

ITEM-HSG
Büro 24-0-238
Dufourstrasse 40a
9000 St. Gallen

Jessica Rebecca Helbling

Research Associate

ITEM-HSG
Büro 24-0-241
Dufourstrasse 40a
9000 St Gallen
Roland Berger is the only management consultancy of European heritage with a strong international footprint operating across 51 offices in all major markets. Our 3,000 employees offer a unique combination of an analytical approach and an empathic attitude. Our dedicated MedTech industry team provides in-depth expertise to meet the profound challenges of operational performance, ensuring outstanding execution strengths.

Your Roland Berger Experts

Dr. Thilo Kaltenbach, Senior Partner 
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Stephan Fath, Principal
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Marco Bühren, Principal
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FAQ

Any MedTech (medical device and diagnostics manufacturers) company with its manufacturing sites.
Any time – just reach out to us.
The benchmarking can be completed in 6-8 weeks. However, this depends heavily on two factors: (1) Commitment from the site(s) and (2) data availability.
Yes. The goal is not to provide all data points in the questionnaire. However, we ask for a sufficient amount to compare you to your peers. We support you with guidance on how to calculate KPIs.
We have two means to create a meaningful comparison:
(1) We create peer groups with common contextual factors, such as product groups, no opaque adjustments or algorithms. At the same time, we ensure that the peer group is large enough.
(2) We compare you with realistic, overall high-performers. The advantage is, high-performer values are actually achievable and prevent single-metric-misinterpretation (the best in one KPI may be the worst in ten other ones). Thus, the comparison to your peers accounts for trade-offs.
You are unique. Together, we discuss and find a suitable peer group at the beginning. We do not find the exact same ‘apple’ as you are, but we guarantee a reasonable apple-to-apple comparison. In addition, we make peer group characteristics transparent in the report. Thereby, results and discussions can be set into context.
This is no problem as we distinguish between product groups. We ask for KPIs per product group separately even within the same manufacturing site.
Your data is handled confidentially (NDA/CDA can be signed) and you retain full control over your data. The database is stored on Swiss servers and access is limited exclusively to the St.Gallen team.
No. Data and participation is confidential and anonymous. Data shown in the report is aggregated and anonymized, which makes it impossible to trace back. Your peer group will be described with contextual factors but no names will be stated.
We estimate one FTE week of effort for one manufacturing site. Costs depend on number of manufacturing sites and how many product groups are manufactured per site. Please reach out to us to learn more.

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