In this week’s episode of Looking South, Eric Gau is joined by Wiltrom Business Development Manager Rita Tsai to discuss her company’s expansion into Southeast Asia with the help of the government’s New Southbound Policy.
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Transcript below:
Eric Gau: Good morning everyone, I’m Eric Gau, and you are listening to Looking South here on ICRT. On this program, we look at the effects of the Tsai administration’s New Southbound Policy is having on Taiwan. For an idea of how it’s impacting local SMEs, we are today talking with Rita Tsai, the Business Development Manager of Wiltrom. Ms. Tsai, good morning, and welcome to the program.
Rita Tsai: Hi, good morning everyone.
Eric: Ms. Tsai, why don’t you start off by introducing your company to us. What sector is Wiltrom in?
Rita: Wiltrom is a company consisting of expert people in biomedical research field. Our inspiration is carrying unmet spinal solutions for patients and doctors. Our products are promising evolution in Spinal Fixation and Vertebral Augmentation procedures. Both product systems are proved their bringing improvement and efficiency of treatment, so Wiltrom is sharing the advanced solutions to rest of the world.
Eric: What are the reasons behind Wiltrom wanting to expand into Southeast Asia?
Rita: S.E.A medical markets are still developing. Medical professionals and doctors are very eager to learn sophisticated and advanced techniques. They are skillful, but still they need a guide, our role at this point is showing them the path. Recently we were invited Philippines Orthopedic Association to teach surgeons Minimally Invasive Surgery of Spinal Fixation System. We sparked the idea with Dr. Mehdi Abili, he holds lecture of MIS during the congress in Manila, Philippines. Even we are very impressed with local doctors’ attention. Dr. Abili has started to teach “single-incision Minimally Invasive Surgery” to other surgeons. The outcome is significant. Doctors who have been trained with MIS are directly leaving old, traditional spinal fixation surgery, and replace it with MIS surgery. We targeted major Southeast Asian markets such as Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Those markets have high potential with having already medical infrastructure.
Eric: What has the government here in Taiwan done to help companies like yours to break out into other markets?
Rita: We got lots of support from our Bureau of Foreign Trade. They provide lots of resources. It was a special experience that we attended the International Market Development program which hold by the Bureau of Foreign Trade. This program let you think more about your marketing strategy, then make the action plan for your program, finally ask your team to reach your goals. In the process, our government not only support the funds but also provide us good references. Exactly it’s an unfamiliar market for us in the Southeast Asia country, we don’t know the details about their medical culture, and their medical registration rule, also their regulation system, but the foreign trade always welcomes us to ask any questions. That’s the reason why we can get the successful promote in the Southeast Asian country, this year we got the local medical registration in Malaysia, we hope we can gain more value in the future.
Eric: What were some of the challenges that Wiltrom had to overcome while you were breaking into the Southeast Asia market?
Rita: In South Asian market region each market has its own unique system. Their dynamics are different even from each other. The best-worst thing is the countries have been recently organizing their laws, and implanting new regulations. During this process, the market becomes more complicated.
Another challenge is not all S.E.A countries have high number of well trained, aware of the latest developments surgeons. We need to synchronize and update their knowledge with the latest advancements of medical device technology. The Minimally Invasive Surgery technique is one of the great example for this situation. The MIS is proved far better surgery over open surgery. However, many surgeons in Southeast Asian countries need to be trained to have ability to follow MIS procedures.
Eric: What steps did you take to meet these challenges that you were just telling us about?
Rita: There are some unwritten rules that we need to follow. So we keep working intensively with our business partner to overcome that regulation challenges.
We and our business partner jointly arrange symposiums, trainings and hospital visits that help us to touch directly to surgeons and medical professionals. It increases interests of surgeons and boost business and market activities.
Eric: Ms. Tsai, in your experience, how is doing business in Southeast Asia different from what you’re used to back home, here in Taiwan?
Rita: Firstly, ASEAN is not a single country but a group of economic entities with different regulatory environment and health care system, I need to be on top of all this before making any decisions.
Secondly, the market access and go to market modelling is a challenge in ASEAN due to tiered affordability and the complexity of the regulatory environment. So I need to be creative and significantly expanding my connections to search for the best solution to each market. This really stretched myself out of the comfort zone but will benefit the company in a long run if I do it right in the first place.
Last but not least, I need to get myself ready to embrace the different culture in this region especially to understand the religious background of each customer or partner I will work with. This is not something we normally pay attention to when working in Taiwan, but crucially important in ASEAN region
So in summary, working in ASEAN is challenging but quite rewarding and fulfilling journey for me.
Eric: What are your future plans for your overseas operations?
Rita: We keep working to promote our products in Philippines and Malaysia. In Philippines, Wiltrom is going to hold CBT Screw training in May at Midyear Congress of Ortho-Spine Society and Tripod-Fix; Vertebral Compression Fracture product launch in June at ASEAN Spine Society Congress. In addition, we are planning to have fellowship program for Filipino doctors in Taiwan.
In Malaysia, we also will launch CBT and Tripod Fix symposium in May at Malaysian Orthopaedic Association next year, we hope we can get more connections and produce more value in the future.
Eric: What is something that would have been helpful to know before you started the expansion process? And what would your advice be to other companies that are starting out on that same path?
Rita: We wish we knew medical device regulations of each market and market status. At the early stage, we had to increase our company reputation. For example, we attended the spinal association congress and offered innovative and high quality products to the market. Next stage, we needed to select a reliable distributor(s) to collaborate with their channel.
My advice is consider brand image seriously, above other facts.
Eric: We’ve been chatting with Rita Tsai, the Business Development Manager of Wiltrom, about her company’s experience in the Southeast Asian market. Ms. Tsai, thank you for taking the time to speak with us today.
Rita: Thank you.
Eric: And that’s it for yet another installment of Looking South. Join us again next week as we switch gears and go back to looking at educational exchanges on the program. I’m Eric Gau, thanks for tuning in.