This past weekend I worked with two teammates on the Medtronic Business Development case competition. Our objective was to present a BD strategy for Medtronic's Surgical Technologies division. The Surgical Technologies division is comprised of ENT tools, Neurosurgery tools, and Navigation / Imaging tools. My team worked Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to come up with our BD strategy:1) Partnership with ENTrigue, a venture-backed company developing surgical tools for ENT doctors.
2) Partnership with Xoran, maker of portable ENT CT scanners.
3) Partnership with Cochlear, maker of implanted hearing devices for the severely hearing impaired.
Unfortunately, we did not progress to the finals. But, it was still a good learning experience. BD is extremely open-ended, and I don't think there are any right or wrong acquisition targets. Success will depend on execution. But, without intimate knowledge of the division and its needs, it's hard to do well in this kind of case.
