Misaligned KPIs in Commercial Medtech Operations - Featuring VP Ops & IT Luis Morales [ep #119]

Medtech Snapshot Podcast - ep #119 features Shockwave Medical VP of Operations and IT Luis Morales as he walks us through the impact of misaligned KPIs with commercial medtech operations.

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Read the Full Interview:
[Host - Travis] Welcome back to another Medtech Snapshot, the one question, one answer, highly digests medical device podcast. With me today is the global vice president of operations and IT, Luis Morales, Luis, glad to have you on. 

So, Luis, walk us through when KPIs aren't aligned, what's the impact to commercialize operations?

[Guest Luis Morales] "Travis, I think that's a great question. And, you know, my thoughts around that may seem simple, but they're very hard to implement. You know, the businesses that I've had, I've had the honor of working for various companies and different businesses across my career."

"And those that I've seen that are the most successful are businesses where they've been able to ensure that the broad organization, all functions, all teams really have one goal. Because at the end of the day, in a Medtech company, it is about serving as many patients as you can with the life-saving, life-altering technologies that we design and manufacture, right? And I've found that if you're able to align an organization to that basic principle, then you have the right mindset going into every different function and aligning on what's truly important to move the business forward, right? When you don't have that, right, there's, you know, prioritization problems. There's organizational retention problems, because frustration builds up, right? That leads to loss efficiency, it leads to stagnation of innovation."

[Guest]"And ultimately, right, less patients benefit from the technology that we design and manufacture, right? So that's how, you know, I see the importance of it and good organizations do it well, but it is something hard to do, for sure."

[Host] "Well, and, you know, to your point about resources, you know, I also look at that from a dollar's perspective, right? You know, when our KPIs aren't aligned, especially when you're in a commercialized state. I mean, every dollar counts, right?"

[Guest] "So what's been your background on that and looking at KPIs as it relates to finances? Yeah, 100%. And you can tie it back to that same objective, right? If we are a successful business and we improve our margins and we improve our cash flow, that leads to additional investment, additional investment leads to innovation, innovation leads to better technologies that serve patients, right? And so when you don't have that alignment, right, then you end up wasting endless hours in the organization, you know, with different motives and that inefficiency costs money, right? Every minute where you have functions that are working towards different objectives, it's minutes that you have dollars going the wrong direction."