The fundamental discrepancy is that Siiquant focused on hospitals, while Teomnik focused on researchers. These two areas of focus lead to different revenue models, which I believe fit well for their respective markets. Because it was stated that the researchers do not have the same upfront price restrictions as hospitals do due to large grants, Teomnik is able to sell their machines at relatively high margins and make money in a relatively straightforward fashion. Siiquant on the other hand sells to hospitals. Without the large research grants, they are more price sensitive, so Siiquant has to make money on the chemicals that machines use, as well as retain customers with their high value customer service. I understand that forcing a single revenue model could potentially streamline things and provide structure, but I tend to agree with Isolde philosophically when she said, “what’s crazy is imposing a single, rigid structure
that’s going to hamstring us when we need to be nimble, flexible, and ingenious to keep up with a dynamic marketplace.” She isn’t wrong, especially when the customer base for each Siiquant and Teomnik is so different, and require different things to please them. I don’t believe that imposing structure is fundamentally a good thing, and it should only be done when necessary – which it is not here. If it were up to me to come up with a merging process for the two departments, I would encourage each to stay with what they are comfortable with revenue-wise in the short term, and after seeing the results over time we can potentially think about a change. The need for structure comes from a need for control, which isn’t a strong suit in a dynamic marketplace. I would avoid losing revenue by forcing unnecessary change and
