Roger Gooden and Jonathan Rutter launched the Medical Buying Group (MBG) in August to challenge the status quo when it comes to medical procurement. The two co-founders (pictured above; Gooden on the right, and Rutter on the left) met at the iFace Group, where they delivered telecoms and IT services for numerous healthcare clients. From speaking to those clients, it was clear to Gooden and Rutter that GP surgeries and healthcare professionals could benefit from improved supply procurement processes. They set out to form MBG.
Early this year, they appointed Anthony Davy, former vice president of Genpact, as managing director. Then, the three outlined a mission to use technology to deliver an enhanced customer experience, with a focus on core values of transformation, transparency, and trust.
Davy’s corporate background has allowed MBG to ensure the business is scalable from the start. Gooden explained, “We realised we need to have people in the business that know how to develop the process and drive to [scale the business]. Anthony is all about the attention to detail and his focus is on the member experience.”
It is still early days for the new company but, since its launch, Gooden said the feedback has been positive so far. He added, “The Channel has been looking for something to revitalise the industry and their revenue streams. The partners that we are talking to are quite happy to be working with us, on the basis they can see where they can rebuild revenue that has potentially dropped, especially due to the likes of Covid. They can see how they will potentially be able to bring themselves back up to the revenue and earnings in the channel of circa 2005.”
Amazon for medical supplies
MBG has a broad aim to simplify healthcare supply procurement processes, so we asked what an ideal medical supply provider looks like. Gooden explained the company and its partners ensure healthcare organisations can get everything they require from one place. He added, “We call it the Amazon feel, where customers go on the portal, click on what they need, things are delivered on time and things are generally always in stock. Because of the constraints in the health industry at the moment, we’re trying to make things easy for GP practices so they can streamline their order process.”
Given the tech backgrounds of MBG’s management team, we asked what the telco and IT channel does well in terms of procurement processes that make it transferable to broader healthcare services. Gooden explained that IT and telecoms professionals have always taken the time to understand exactly what the customer requirements are. Services are then developed and delivered to meet those needs. This service-centric approach, built on customer understanding, is well suited to the medical industry.
We came back to the company values of transformation, transparency, and trust. Gooden explained how these have guided the MBG management team. He said, “We put our customers at the centre of everything we do; we like to say we are sitting on the same side of the table as them because we are. We work hard to build partnerships with our members, we are honest about our operations, our suppliers, our pricing. We are constantly adapting to feedback and improving to make their experience even better. And we’re really listening to what the requirements of the healthcare industry are.”
Gearing up for growth
Now MBG has built the right foundations, Gooden and his team will focus on making “a clear dent in this industry”. To make that happen, the company will continue to recruit partners as well as providing a good experience for members that are already regularly using the MBG portal.
This industry has a lot of potential for partners examining new revenue streams, and feedback from healthcare clients has shown medical procurement processes could learn a lot from the telecoms and IT industry. Gooden said, “Even though times are difficult in many industries at the moment, if you’re really focused and driven, you can still achieve what you want to and adapt to these new ways of working. It’s all about helping each other right now.”