Two Home Healthcare Titans - Two Strategies…

In the last few days two (at least) interesting things have happened in the home healthcare industry. People even remotely close to the industry know that by watching the activities of Sunrise Medical and Invacare Corporation - aggressive competitors and both leaders in their own right, you can understand a lot about what is going on.

This is why when I heard that Sunrise Medical was acquiring Lomax Mobility in the United Kingdom and read the latest quarterly press release from Invacare - well, I had to stop and think.

Please understand that I am not making a judgment its just that in so doing Sunrise is adding manufacturing capacity by acquiring a company with 200 employees in the UK while Invacare has announced that it is reviewing its global manufacturing and distribution strategy and hopes to save $21 million pre tax annualized. Maybe the UK is not part of the plan.

Of course in addition to the manufacturing operations Sunrise is getting a much bigger share of the UK NHS market. Sunrise has a very bright global management team so this decision would not have been taken lightly.

It seems that while cost is a huge industry driver today some of the additional thoughts in a previous post concerning adding value and channel management are still right there.

Invacare had bought its way into the NHS in the mid 1990’s through its Bencraft acquisition. In April of this year Invacare made their own acquisition in the UK of a value added seating company.

Which ever way you look at this Sunrise Medical has made a bold step in the UK and has picked up a large share of the biggest customer.

As with most acquisitions today - the challenge is going to be in the execution, especially as Lomax will be run separately according to sources.

This is not the last we have heard of this.