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NiVoice
Business outlook
So far, we’re not experiencing a downturn and the business in the UK and
elsewhere appears to be weathering the storm. Whether the recession is
affecting our growth rates is less clear, but we're growing our business
healthily and I hope this will continue to be the case. Because our products are
premium products, our customers tend to do a lot of research before they
actually make the purchase, which helps us of course, as Medela’s breast
pumps are recognised as the most advanced on the market and are award
winners to boot.
The message on breastfeeding is slowly getting out, and people are still
determined to continue with sports, social or professional life and these longer
term trends I believe are a good indicator that our business should stay robust
in the years to come. We are also still the number one preferred choice of
hospitals and healthcare professionals, which is so important not just because it
is a valuable source of business to us but also because it introduces lots of
young mothers to our technology. And referrals from healthcare or elsewhere
still represent the most important source of new custom for us, much more
than advertising.
Product pipeline
We’re still in the launch phase of our latest breast pump, the Medela
Freestyle, and this has been going really well as we’ve sold much more than
we had originally thought we would. It's a departure from our other pumps as
it has a fairly revolutionary design that enables mothers to express ‘hands free’,
so it’s encouraging to see that mums seem to like our innovations.
After we get the freestyle established we’ll certainly look to introduce other
new products. We’re constantly investing in new ways to make our technology
smaller, more portable and more powerful, basically meeting our mission to
make hospital-grade equipment available to every mum, and this, as well as
how we can improve quality of life for breast-feeding mothers, will be what
drives our product development going forwards.
Other than pumps, we are also developing a new range of accessories. It
makes sense that if a mum buys one of our pumps, she will also want nipple
shields, bottles and other equipment to go with it and this is a gap in our
portfolio we will very shortly fill.
The other challenge for us at the moment is getting more training on
breastfeeding and our products into the shops. Shop workers do really
appreciate the training we give them: for example, nipple size is a really
important issue for mothers and sales staff in shops often want to be able to
help their customer but often they lack the basic knowledge. We’re already
doing this in some of the bigger stores and selection of baby cafes and we
intend to do more of this.
What government can do
The nursery industry does all it can to help young mothers bring up their
babies but when it comes to the welfare of mothers that breastfeed, I think
there is room for social policy to step in. You only have to pick up a newspaper
these days – even some of the so-called quality ones - to see what kind of
pressure mothers are under to return to their pre-natal state. Call it the
sexualisation of the breast or whatever. The bottom line is the UK drop-off rate
for breast feeding mothers would not be anywhere near as high as it is if
mothers had more information at their disposal: dads often think, for example,
that they’re helping out by taking over the evening feed but so often they are
not even aware that, with a breast pump, this could be done using the
mothers own milk. We need more basic education on this and it really needs
to start at school level.
Tel: 0870 950 5994
Web: www.medela.co.uk
www.nursery-industry.co.uk
•
SEPTEMBER 2009
•
NURSERY INDUSTRY
•
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