
Vietnam was a crisis that revealed the limitations of managerial thinking at the time, but McNamara never stopped learning. In his work we see the evolution of the discipline, from the development of frameworks to make sense of markets and organizations, to the embrace of quantitative analysis in decision making, to the growing understanding of human psychology. In this illuminating essay, Rosenzweig, a professor of strategy and international business at IMD, presents McNamara not only as an idealist and an accomplished manager but as the personification of management itself in his time. Department of Defense), and humanitarian service (as president of the World Bank for more than a decade).

Spanning five decades, it included leading roles in academia (as a professor at Harvard Business School in the early 1940s), private enterprise (as an executive who helped turn around the ailing Ford Motor Company after the war), government (in his seven-year stint at the U.S. But McNamara’s career was brilliant long before he served as secretary of defense under presidents Kennedy and Johnson-and long after as well. McNamara is mentioned, one thought usually springs to mind: the tragedy of Vietnam. We decided to try more purposefully to reach prospective customers at their desks, via an eye-catching and relevant direct mailer.When the name Robert S. W2O was already assisting Cardinal Health with trade advertising and other marketing efforts, supplementing the client’s own efforts with digital marketing and trade shows. Once the strategy was completed, the client felt the best way to engage with this audience was through a “surround sound” approach. With this emotional messaging, our creative team came up with a plethora of direct mail ideas centered around the idea of sight/vision. Our target audiences were most interested in cutting time spent on inventory management – a demonstrated day to day pain point from market research - and instead spend their time where it counts - helping patients. We developed a creative campaign entitled “See What You’ve Been Missing” that communicated our brand promise of “operational clarity” through an emotional lens. In canvasing the competitive landscape, we realized all similar inventory management tools spoke to consumers primarily on the functional level. The positioning platform was centered around the brand promise of “Operational Clarity”.

W2O Group synthesized client-provided personas and market research, and developed strategic positioning, messaging and creative concepts for the Cardinal Health Inventory Solutions product.
#Cardinal inventory manager trial#
In order to generate interest in the system among these audiences, the Cardinal Health Inventory Management Solutions marketing team decided to extend a one-year, no-charge trial to several hundred key accounts. In 2016, looking to expand its market penetration in the cath lab, a department that typically manages a large amount of high value inventory, the Cardinal Health Inventory Management Solutions team was charged with raising awareness and triggering lead progression among cath lab managers and hospital supply chain leaders, who are in charge of purchasing and tracking supplies within the cath lab. Part of Cardinal Health’s business solutions offerings, Cardinal Health Inventory Management Solutions boasts a 97%+ customer retention rate. Cardinal Health Inventory Management Solutions is a cloud-based inventory management system that connects data analytics and smart tools to improve and streamline workflow and operational performance within a hospital or health system’s supply chain.
